Baxter
by Betz88
Summary: Sequel to Margin for Error ... House finally meets the mutt that saved his life, and then finds that the mutt talks back!
1. Chapter 1

"BAXTER"

- Everyone Should Have A Mutt! -

Betz88

2006

Chapter 1

"The Mutt"

He jolted to consciousness with a grunt of pain when the wheels of the gurney flipped down as he was being lifted out of the ambulance. He was vaguely aware of a sense of urgency when ceiling lights along the corridor above him whipped past in a blur of motion. Everything else seemed lost in a dreamy sensation of calliope music and merry-go-round animals he remembered seeing on the mall in Washington D. C. when he was a kid.

The illusion of flying through the air on a red merry-go-round horse stole his equilibrium and sent him reeling end over end until his imagination encompassed all the creatures gathered on the whirling platform around him. A green elephant with plumes on its head lumbered behind him; a yellow lion under a blue saddle on his right; and on his left a very large, brown dog with haunted eyes.

When the music stopped abruptly, the red horse beneath him stumbled and fell out of the sky … and all the other lovely animals around him, crashing, plowing up puffy tendrils of storm clouds that rained down all around them.

And then all was silent.

He saw nothing, felt nothing; heard nothing more, except perhaps the faint panting of a dog, far away to his left.

After that, the painkillers took away all feeling, and he knew no more for a very long time.

Dr. Eric Foreman's voice, laced with an undercurrent of bafflement, carried across the intervening space to Dr. James Wilson. They both ran alongside the speeding gurney as it careened down the corridor to the hospital's trauma center.

"Did we hear him right? Did he actually say he _wanted_ somebody to pick up that mutt and bring it along?"

"That's what I heard him say." Wilson conceded. "He said: 'Bring the mutt!'"

"He was delirious! Out of his head with pain!"

Wilson shook his head and quickened his pace as the gurney turned the corner. "Don't you bet on it! Not for a minute!"

In a field choked with briars and scrub grasses, halfway between the Jersey Pike and Skunk Hollow Road, a dilapidated Dodge van squatted among the jutting tufts of dead milkweed and alfalfa stubble.

At the back of the van, both rear doors hung open and a young man in a tan police uniform poked around through an accumulated pile of junk, looking for a long pole with a noose on the end. He finally found one end of it, but had to haul the rest of its length upward, and untangle the rope from a mass of clinging debris. He knew his boss, the Chief, was waiting for him impatiently down the road by the culvert, standing there tossing chunks of beef jerky, one at a time, to a mangy mutt which refused to come out of the tunnel.

No amount of coaxing or cajoling had moved the large, scruffy brown mongrel out from its sanctuary deep within the safety of the culvert's entrance. The two men's overtures only earned them more deep-throated growls and a curled lip every time they ventured closer. The dog did not know they were intent on rescue and not harm. It held them off in the only way it knew how. The only thing keeping it anywhere near the vicinity was the continuous tossing of food by the human, which it chomped greedily as fast as it hit the ground. But the jerky would not last forever. The level of pieces remaining in the plastic bag was going down steadily.

Chief Khan Noonian Singh looked back over his shoulder toward the old Dodge van, willing his young deputy to move his ass and get back here so they could scoop up the mutt and hit the road to the office of the nearest vet. Already, Konnie had cause to regret his promise to the two young doctors who had approached him with the request to make every effort to bring in the nearly wild animal and restrain it.

The badly injured man they'd finally located at the bottom of the culvert had had something to do with the request, Konnie felt certain. The disappearance of Dr. Gregory House after a tragic automobile accident on the Pike had auxiliary police combing the vicinity for nearly forty eight hours afterward without success. How in hell the doctor had managed to get this far from the crash scene with such severe injuries _and_ a physical disability, was a mystery for which the Chief did not care to hazard a guess.

The fact that Chief Singh had been the one to find Dr. House, was not due to super sleuthing on his part, but rather to the fiercely protective growl of that damned dog as he approached the lip of the culvert. Only the lure of food being thrown at the starving animal had pulled it away from the injured doctor's side and allowed the ambulance crew to get in there to stabilize House's broken hand, lacerated leg and other trauma.

Shortly before the ambulance pulled away from the field, its attending physicians had approached him with the strange request that he try to capture the dog and take it to the nearest veterinarian. Skeptically, Konnie had agreed, though for the life of him, he could not, at this moment, figure out why.

And so, here they were. The two of them. Standing there looking down into the shadows of the Skunk Hollow culvert; he with an empty plastic bag, and his deputy with a long aluminum pole with a noose on the end, trying to figure out how to subdue a snarling wild dog which was probably powerful enough and frightened enough to take both their heads off at the neck!

Konnie sighed heavily and looked across at Andy Alta expectantly. "I want you to circle around to the other end of the culvert," he said. "Make enough commotion so the mutt knows you're there. Let me have the pole, and I'll go in from this end. All you gotta do is close in on him and force him to come closer to me. I'll lasso his ass and we'll stuff him in the back of the van and take him to Bernie Baumberger's clinic."

Alta stared at his boss dubiously for a moment. He was anything but enthusiastic about entering the mouth of the filthy culvert, contaminated with God-only-knew-what detritus of the human condition. Still, Chief Singh usually knew what he was doing, and Alta trusted him to be right this time as well. With raised eyebrows he shifted his gaze until he met his boss' expectant stare. Then he handed the pole across. Konnie accepted it with a twinkle in his eyes and gestured to the other side of the road with a lift of his chin and a tolerant grin. Andy Alta pursed his lips, turned on his heel and walked off in the opposite direction.

Chief Singh grasped the tethering pole tightly in his fist and started cautiously down the embankment to the entrance of the culvert. Flat on the ground near the crumbling terra cotta conduit pipe, he stooped to check out the other end where a circle of light indicated the spot where it opened at the other side of the road. The big brown dog curled its lip and backed away further into the dim interior where sunlight did not reach.

At the other end of the culvert a disturbance in the day's glow and a slightly blurred movement indicated that Alta had indeed reached his position, blocking the dog's only other exit. Holding the pole in front of him, Konnie advanced cautiously.

The dog was not a stupid creature in the fact that it knew it was trapped. Instantly it went into fight-or-flight mode, curled its lip threateningly over strong yellow teeth and began to growl menacingly.

Konnie spoke in a soothing manner, keeping his voice low and even. "C'mon, boy … I'm not gonna hurt you …" It was a litany he'd heard a thousand times by anybody who ever approached a strange animal. He knew it was bullshit, and so did the dog. The mutt backed away further into the dimness of the culvert, further blending into its surroundings where it was getting more and more difficult to see.

Konnie called across to Alta. "Move toward me, Andy … force the mutt to come back this way where I can see him better!"

"Coming …" came the distant reply.

The image at the other end of the culvert moved again, gradually closing off the small amount of daylight that had reflected inward, and blocking off the opposite side of the road from any view of it the chief might have had before. The dog was right there though. Close by. He could hear it breathing, could hear the low growl that continued to emanate deep from the animal's throat.

The dog realized it was being approached from the other end. There was a nervous movement of its body, and its paws scratched among the dead grasses and dry leaves as its panic rose along with the desperation to get away. Konnie stood poised with the tethering pole in his hands, waiting for the dog to make a move.

And then it came. With a yip of panic, the dog broke suddenly in the chief's direction, attempting to squeeze between the human with the frightening hitting device in its hands and the side of the culvert. Konnie saw the blur of movement and dived in that direction. The dog was screaming now; yelping in strangled terror, scraping through the dirt and filth, leaping aside wildly in the attempt to escape.

Chief Singh went down on his elbows and knees on the cruddy culvert floor, still holding onto the pole and knowing his attempt had failed. The dog had gotten away, and now they would probably never catch it.

He would have to tell the two young doctors …

And then the rope at the end of the pole tightened, nearly ripping its length from his hands. He flung himself forward, grasping it tightly, hauling backward against the pull of the considerable weight at the opposite end.

In its blind desperation to be free, the dog had scrambled headlong into the noose at the end of the pole, and its weight and momentum had closed the loop around its neck until it was hopelessly entangled and completely unable to free itself. The more it struggled, the tighter became the noose, until it could no longer draw a breath, and it wilted onto the cold ground, helpless, trembling and gasping.

Andy Alta ran up to his boss' side and took the tether from him until Singh could haul himself to his feet and brush the crap off his uniform. "Nice goin', Chief! Looks like you got 'im!"

Konnie snorted with disgust. "Oh yeah … I got 'im all right! Freakin' mongrel! Hold 'im down, willya? … so I can loosen the noose before he chokes himself to death."

Alta complied, smiling to himself privately where his boss could not see. It sure looked like dog shit stains on the chief's knees and elbows. And from the look on Singh's face at that moment, it seemed as though he thought so as well.

They lifted the trembling, subdued animal into the rear compartment of the van … among the accumulation of debris and junk. Konnie then backed it slowly onto Skunk Hollow Road. Next stop: Bernie Baumberger's Veterinary Clinic.

It was a tedious ride. Both men sat in their seats with disgusted looks on their faces. Neither of them said a word, just squinted at each other apprehensively as, from time to time the body of the panicked dog ricocheted off the metal sides back there.

The whole van stank to high heaven!

6


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Lies and Truth"

He did not hate his Dad! He never had, and never would.

But the insistent declaration that he _did_ hate the man, truth be damned, always provided him with a great excuse to throw people off. It had certainly worked with Cuddy …

Not, however, he sometimes thought … with Wilson.

The fact was that he cranked out a lot of verbal bullshit just for shock value. Shot off his mouth and then watched for reactions to the words; waited for that blinding flash of belief-disbelief that told him whether or not he had seized the upper hand in a given situation. Drive the morons back to arms' length so they would never have enough time to understand the effort it took for him just to try to help them! That was usually the instant when people either granted him total control in their treatments, or snorted in disgust and asked for another physician. He couldn't have cared less either way, but he usually preferred the distraction of the former over the indifference of the latter. Made life more interesting somehow!

It was his father, John House, ("Blackjack" to his old Paris Island buddies), whose hard-ass reputation originally took the brunt of his son's sarcastic dissing. Not that John would ever have given a tinker's damn! Gregg always held the belief that his old man would have understood, and even afforded himself a good laugh at the irony of the ongoing joke, had he known … which he just might … for all Gregg knew.

Gregory House, M. D., however, balked at granting his parents too much access to his private life ever since the infarction. That access might allow them to witness an involuntary lowering of his personal barricades, and they did not need the additional worry of being privy to his pain.

Sometimes the pain bothered him enough that it was impossible for him to hide it, and those were the days he hibernated in his office behind closed doors. Furthermore, he did not want to hear any of the oft-repeated stories his parents were fond of relating about his childhood. Any inadvertent revelation about his angry misspent youth was an unwelcome intrusion into the cloak of mystery he kept curled tightly about himself.

It had been bad enough when his mom told him he was perfect just the way he was, (thank God no one else was there to hear!) and his dad grumbled that the last time he'd looked, Gregg did indeed have two legs. The old man's idea of "luck" had nothing to do with it! Or maybe it did.

"Blackjack" House had instilled in his son a strict sense of honor which came directly from his own training in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. This honor system dictated that a man's integrity and sense of truth and personal conduct mattered above all else. Gregg had fought his father's strict U. S. Marines rigidity all his young life, and sometimes it galled him no end that it had, after all, indelibly rubbed off on him. Even his best efforts would not make it go away. He'd finally grown into a man who'd spent his entire adult life denying that part of himself, but it was as deeply ingrained as his own DNA. And so he learned to hide it beneath layers and layers of sarcasm, bitter humor and bullshit.

No, he did not hate his Dad. He held a grudging respect for the man. Deep inside he understood completely that the reason they didn't get along together for any length of time was simply because they were so fucking much alike!

ooooooooooo

Careening down the Jersey Pike last Sunday night, jammin' to Jethro Tull, with speeds sometimes topping a hundred miles an hour, Gregg's mind whirled with mixed images of the two most prominent men in his life: his dad … and his best friend. He'd never known two people who were such polar opposites; such total and extreme ends of his life's spectrum.

John House was a total ball buster.

James Wilson was his port in every storm!

Gregory House had been angry with himself Sunday night. He was just about at the end of his rope with physical pain, and confused and upset with the many riddles that had recently been taking over his life; riddles which had tied his brilliant mind into knots. He was running away from the one riddle which he'd been unable to solve:

Himself!

At the forty six mile post, a sudden spasm that skittered along his bad leg caused him to jerk the steering wheel hard to the right. His left foot slid off the accelerator and his breath hitched in pain as his eyes clenched shut. During that split second, he lost control. The Corvette's direct-steering mechanism overcompensated for the angle of drift, and the right rear tire blew out beneath the undertow of friction. It sent them careening through the older section of guard rail and head-first down the embankment. The tough little car flew apart in all directions on impact, and he with it.

After that the world went away for a long time.

Vaguely he recalled waking in a dark, damp, frightening place. For hours he drifted in and out of consciousness, floating on a cushion of pain and hallucination. Time was no longer linear, but blinking in and out of existence. Sunlight blasted his vision one moment, and dark images of rabid wolves haunted his dreams the next.

After that the dog visions began to creep in. There was a large brown dog hovering somewhere near the fringes of perception … part of the dreams; visual and auditory hallucinations. It was a filthy, smelly thing, licking at his face and neck, settling close to his uninjured shoulder, nervously guarding him. Never leaving his side in spite of his weak and useless efforts to shout it gone!

Reminded him of his dad. Stubborn. Looming like a monolith in the background of his worst nightmares.

Reminded him of Wilson too. Compassionate. Wilson would not leave either, even when he shouted …

_Especially _when he shouted!

ooooooooooo

He lay nude in the trauma center, covered only with a thin hospital sheet. Trained trauma nurses and technicians had been working over him since he'd come through the door. His clothing was removed carefully. They sponged away the encrusted dirt from his face, neck and limbs, while at the same time conducting tests, taking fluid samples, inserting IVs and setting up monitors. Within fifteen minutes he was medicated to oblivion, deeply unconscious.

Without, thankfully, pain.

Two scrubbed and gowned trauma surgeons stared at the hollow gauntness of his long, thin body. Both men experienced compassion they had not known they still possessed when they saw their colleague like this; the unnatural contours of the bent, crippled leg, further compromised by its most recent injury. Both men froze in place for a moment and exchanged stunned glances as they regarded the angry surgical scar and deep indentation in the flesh where the large quadriceps muscle had once rested. And now, added to that was the deep laceration and blunt trauma injury that ran from the top of his knee, nearly to his crotch. A jagged corner of the Corvette's broken dashboard must have laid him open. House's tight blue jeans had stemmed the flow at first, but now the wound was bleeding freely. The fresh cushion of temporary bandaging was becoming saturated, leaking blood onto the absorbent pad beneath him.

His right hand was badly fractured, its palm lacerated. It lay, palm down, submerged in a bloody basin of antiseptic, while a layer of imbedded dirt floated away and they could scan the injury and prepare to operate. The right side of his face had been full of imbedded safety glass from the car's windows when they'd shattered and struck him like driving rain. He'd been very fortunate his eyes had been spared. The glass was carefully removed as soon as he was brought in, and the area cleansed. The entire side of his face looked as though he had an acute case of Poison Ivy.

Gregory House had been intubated and his body fully prepped for the surgery to come. He was a human pin cushion, crisscrossed with IV lines. Someone had just finished attaching a Foley, causing him to squirm uncomfortably. Finally he settled down. His heartbeat regulated and his breathing deepened.

With the preparations finished, they were ready to close the jagged wound on the crippled leg. They would have to be extremely careful. The laceration ran very close to the surgical scar.

A hand surgeon stood by, ready to perform the necessary repairs to the small bones in his right hand. And this patient was a concert pianist as well as a physician. Would he be one again?

Oh God!

They had not realized. Both men drew deep breaths and instantly forgave this doctor with the bad reputation, for most (not all) of his past transgressions.

No wonder he was difficult! Perhaps he had good reason.

oooooooooo

James Wilson and Eric Foreman stood just outside the sterile field, watching through the observation window. Neither of them had attempted to assist with House's preliminary prep and evaluation, and they would not help with the repair surgery either. They were too close to the man on the table, and they were both already traumatized by his ordeal as well. It would be at least another two to three hours until there could be any kind of prognosis. House's life was not at stake, but the further injury to the crippled leg was very serious, as was the broken hand. The possibility of a concussion was not out of the question, judging from the look of the side of his face. The length of time it had taken to find him, in the first place, was another factor. But they must stand by for now, and await further word.

After Gregory House was wheeled out of the emergency room and taken to surgery, both men turned reluctantly and headed for Lisa Cuddy's office. Cuddy would want a full report.

Foreman fell into step beside Wilson as they headed back through the corridor. "That's the first time I ever saw House's scar," he admitted. "It's …" His voice trailed off before he could voice an appropriate thought.

Wilson took a deep breath and looked over at his companion. "Scary?"

Foreman's head lowered as he replied. "Yeah … 'Scary' is a good word. To tell you the truth, I had no idea his leg was in such lousy shape. I guess I just assumed he was a whiner and a slacker, and that he put most of that limp … _on_!"

"A lot of people make that mistake," Wilson said. "The problem is, House doesn't give a damn what they think, and he never tries to correct them when they assume he's faking most of it. Actually, he's in varying amounts of pain _all_ the time, and when it's at its worst he holes up in his office and won't talk to anybody. Not you, not me, not Cuddy … well, you know what I mean. You've witnessed it often enough. And now you know how real it is. You might want to pass that piece of information around … and cut the man some slack."

Eric nodded appreciatively. "Thanks, Wilson," he said finally. "I'll remember that."

oooooooooo

Lisa Cuddy looked up from a stack of invoices on her desk as Foreman and Wilson entered. She dropped the pen in her hand and gave them her undivided attention. "Well?"

Foreman stood back and allowed Wilson to take the lead.

"It's … pretty serious," Wilson began.

"How serious? Spell it out for me, Dr. Wilson. What can we expect for his immediate future?"

Wilson's right hand went immediately to the back of his neck, absently working at the stiffness as he gathered his thoughts. "I'd say that, without a doubt, he's going to be wheelchair-bound for an unknown length of time. There's no other way for him to get around. His bad leg is deeply bruised and lacerated from the knee to a point just above the infarction scar. No way can he bear weight! His right hand is lacerated at the base of the thumb, and there are broken metacarpals as well. That rules out any possibility he can use the cane … and his weak left shoulder precludes that he try to transfer it to the other hand. Crutches are out for the same reason. He'll need a motorized wheelchair … and I'm afraid we're all in for a long, bumpy ride! He's going to be mad as hell. When he's discharged, someone will have to stay with him around the clock."

Cuddy sighed. "Tell me about it!" She groused. "What about the cuts on his face? Any sign that there might be glass fragments in his eyes? Or a concussion?"

Foreman and Wilson both shook their heads. "At this point, no," Foreman said. "There doesn't seem to be any sign of either. His injuries are painful, but as far as we know now, not life-threatening. He was lucid when they first got him in the ambulance … yelled at Wilson to send somebody back after that mangy brown dog …"

"Dog? House was worried about a _dog?_ That could just have been part of another hallucination …"

"Don't think so," Wilson interjected. "He was looking daggers at me when he was yelling about it. Nothing wrong with his mind! They shot him full of morphine to shut him up."

Cuddy smiled briefly through the cloud of worry. "That certainly sounds like him. But what's with the dog?"

Foreman grinned for a moment. "Darned if we know," he admitted. "But the LaValle police chief and his deputy are still out there the last we heard … trying to corral the mutt and take it to the nearest vet's office."

"And then what?"

James Wilson rolled his eyes skyward and sighed mightily. "Then …" he shrugged. "I guess I get to go to the vet's office and check out the mutt so I can tell House when he wakes up. So you may have a somewhat shaggy visitor in your yard for a few days."

"Oh brother!" Cuddy said. "Are you serious? _My yard?_"

"Oh yeah!" Both men echoed.

oooooooooo

Konnie Singh and Andy Alta managed to dump off the smelly dog a half hour later at the Veterinary Clinic of Bernard Baumberger, DMV. The mutt still fought the rope and snarled threateningly, but cowered trembling when anyone came near it.

When Bernie himself came out to meet them, and a trained assistant led the dog away toward the back of the building for delousing, Chief Singh and Deputy Alta both heaved sighs of relief. Bernie looked Konnie up and down and then snorted with friendly laughter. "Looks like you and the mutt had a wrestling match … and you lost!"

Young Alta snickered into his shirtsleeve and was given the evil eye by his boss, but eventually Konnie saw the humor in the situation too. "Yeah … took a nosedive into the crap trying to lasso that mongrel! I think I landed in a pile of poo!"

"From the smell of things, I think you did too!" Bernie agreed. "By the way, who the heck does the mutt belong to? … and what am I supposed to do with it?"

Singh shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Long story short …" he began. "I don't think it belongs to anybody. It's a stray. One of the doctors from Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital got himself hurt in an automobile accident Sunday night. He wandered away from the scene … a little out of his head … and we didn't locate him until this morning. When I finally found him, this mutt was standing guard over him and wasn't gonna let us get near him. I lured it away with a bag of beef jerky … so you might wanna keep an eye out in case it comes down with a good case of the back-door trots …"

Bernie Baumberger frowned at this, but said nothing.

"Anyhow, as they were loading him into the ambulance, Dr. House yells out to his buddy to bring back the mutt. That's all I know. When your people get the scurvy thing halfway cleaned up, call Dr. James Wilson at this number …" Konnie dug a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it over.

Bernie Baumberger reached for the paper and shoved it into his shirt pocket. "I heard about this Dr. Gregory House on the radio," he said. "He's the head of Diagnostics at PPTH. Some sort of genius, from what I hear. Has to walk with a cane too … from what I hear. He hurt bad?"

Konnie shook his head and shrugged. "Not sure, but he was pretty beat up from what I saw. Bloody hand … bloody face … bloody leg. When they picked him up, that damn ambulance shot back out of there like a bat out of hell.

"Anyhow, me an' Alta here … we better get back. No tellin' what kinda shit my crew will get into if I'm not around."

Baumberger nodded. "Okay, Koonie … good seein' ya. I'll give this Wilson a call when we get the mutt cleaned up."

"Thanks." The two lawmen climbed into the dirty Dodge van and hightailed it out of there. Both were happy to be shed of the whole business. It was cleanup time in the shower room of the LaValle Auxilliary Police Station!

After that, end of shift and a cold beer waiting!

oooooooooo

13


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Git Along Little Doggie!"

Marty Owen had been sitting beside the brown dog's cage for half an hour. She'd watched the animal scarf down a tin dish filled with Kibbles 'n' Bits and empty another tin dish filled with water. Still, the animal pressed its scruffy body against the back wall of the cage and watched her suspiciously with dark and frightened eyes. Marty moved slowly, deliberately. She did not want to scare the animal any worse than it already was, and she did not care to be lunged at through the wire mesh and have a chunk taken out of her arm by the sharp yellow teeth.

When the vet's assistant had tried to subdue the dog to clean him up, the animal had turned hysterical and nearly choked himself to death with the noose. And so they had caged him instead. His matted hair stood out all over his body like a fright wig, and it looked as though a length of rope or an old leather collar of some kind was entangled in his matted ruff.

Marty held a handful of Meaty Bones. The biggest Meaty Bones Del Monte made. Marty turned the first Meaty Bone over and over in her fingers, very slowly. From the back of the cage, alert dark eyes moved with the action; up and down, back and forth, as the treat spun slowly. Marty's voice chanted softly, monotonously. "It's okay, boy. I know you're scared. But nobody's gonna hurt you … not ever again."

The dog had heard that litany before. He did not move. But the voice was mesmerizing, and the lure of the Meaty Bone was enticing. Gradually his head pulled away from the side of the cage, and his muzzle quivered at the smell. This was the first time he had actually eaten a meal in many months, and the _want_ was still maddening. But he hesitated. A soft voice was often followed by a size eleven boot right where it hurt the most. He hung back, but continued to sniff the air. He had never tasted a Meaty Bone before.

Marty Owen purposely shifted position and turned her back on the cage. Leaned against it. Slid around on the floor and drew her knees up nearly to her chest. Pretended she did not know the dog was even there. But she was keenly aware of the sensitive nose sniffing with desire from the back wall of the tight enclosure, gathering in a bit more of the essence of the tempting treat. Marty began to sing in a little-girl voice:

"How much is that doggie in the win-dow?

The one with the wag-ga-lee tail …"

Marty was seventeen and a senior in high school. She was a quiet child, much more at home with animals and creatures than with school mates or other members of the human race. Marty was a redhead with bright blue eyes and a face full of freckles. Her fondest dream was to become a veterinarian like her friend Bernie. She came in to clean kennels and feed the animals in Bernie's hospital on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and sometimes on weekends if he needed her. The pay wasn't great, but she was learning a lot, and being able to bask in the company of all kinds of animals, almost made up for the meager wages.

"How much is that doggie in the win-dow?

I do hope that doggie's for sale …"

Behind her, Marty was aware of another stir of movement. She could hear the slight rustle of the shredded newspapers that lined the bottom of the cage, and she could feel, rather than see, the slow hesitation as the dog's muzzle stretched closer and closer to the wire at the front of the cage.

Very slowly she turned around again to face him, and eased her hand closer to the extended muzzle. "Would you like to have this, boy? It's all yours … all you've gotta do is come get it." Her voice was barely above a whisper, coaxing gently, elevating the timbre of her voice until it was entirely sing-song. "That's the good boy … good boy. Get the Meaty Bone. Come on, boy … here ya go …" She pushed the edge of the treat just inside the wire.

With surprising gentleness, a long tongue reached out in turn and the dog tilted its head sideways in the effort to squeeze its muzzle between the wires of the cage. "Hi there, fella," Marty cooed. "Want the Meaty Bone? Here it is … it's all yours. Good boy. Good … good boy!" With the tip of her thumb, Marty pushed the Meaty Bone through the front of the cage where it dropped at the dog's feet.

With a quick grab and a grating sound of teeth on solid object, the brown dog grabbed the bone and retreated again to the back of the cage. Marty watched him as his strong canines made short work of the Meaty Bone. "Good boy! That's a good boy …" She repeated it over and over in the attempt to have him okay with the sound of her voice.

When the second treat was gone, he stretched out his muzzle toward her and took another long sniff, begging for more, but still too wary to approach her position. Marty made clucking sounds in her throat, determined to lure him over. He sat and continued to sniff, but made no effort to come closer. She watched his ears as they moved back and forth, listening to her voice, and she began to see the animal intelligence emanating from the dark, yearning eyes. He knew there was one last Meaty Bone.

Marty turned around one more time and pressed her back into the mesh again. Ignoring him. Peaking his curiosity, maybe. Sat as still as stone, just to see what happened. Ten minutes passed without a sound. She was about to give up and let him alone to rest and think about it for a time. Then the newspaper rustled. Louder. The dog was getting to his feet. Moving. She could hear him resume his sniffing. Then his cold, wet nose was at the back of her neck. Nudging. Begging. At last!

Marty laughed softly and turned toward him. He was just standing there, a little nervous, head down, nearly cowering. But there at his butt … movement. His heavy, dirty, briar-encrusted tail had begun to wag, oh so slightly. He had finally decided she was not so scary after all.

"Good boy! Oh, you are such a good boy. Come here, boy … come on over and talk to me. That's a boy."

He pressed his head against the side of the cage and whined a little. Marty stuck two fingers through the wire and scratched the filthy ears, and he reached up to lick her fingers. She shoved the final Meaty Bone through the wire mesh.

An hour later she had him out of the cage and out of the misery of the pole and noose. He sat by her side panting and letting her pat his back and pull some of the tangled briars out of his coat. She caressed his face and let him lick her hands again, and then gradually she felt about his neck and tugged at the tight old collar, buried deeply in the fur.

It took some doing, but she finally picked away some of the matted undercoat and unfastened the rusted buckle from the collar. The leather came apart in her hands as she pulled it free; only his thick coat had been holding it in place around his neck. Old! There was the corner of a dog license still riveted in place near the buckle. "2002". He was at least four years old. Then she found a tin nameplate. Someone must have loved him once. Only half of the plate remained, but she could readily see what might have been his name:

"BAX---" And the crossbar of what was probably a "T".

"Bax? Bax? Is your name 'Baxter'?"

He angled his head at her, stared for a moment, and then looked away. No food, no interest. Licked his chops. Yawned. Curled his abomination of a tail and sat.

Maybe it was not his name. Or maybe it had been so long since he had heard it that he didn't even recognize it anymore.

"Baxter? Baxter! I guess that's your name, boy. Get used to it. Tomorrow we make you pretty for your friend the doctor …"

She was reluctant to put him back in the cage, but it was necessary.

She did, however, leave him with another Meaty Bone before she turned off the kennel lights and left for the evening.

oooooooooooooooooooo

James Wilson arrived at the hospital Wednesday morning at 6:00 a.m.

He'd called House's parents the evening before and talked to his mom for a few minutes. He told her it was useless for her and her husband to be on the road at night, but to wait until morning so Gregg would be awake and lucid. She had agreed, and they'd rung off.

Trying to get to sleep that night was a useless endeavor. He'd tossed and turned and glared at the alarm clock, and at 4:00 a.m., finally thought: _The hell with it …_ and hit the shower five minutes later.

He pulled his Volvo into his designated parking stall, got out and practically ran up the front steps to the main entrance. The administrative floors were mostly deserted at this hour, except for Maintenance and Housekeeping finishing up their shifts, and a sleepy security guard patrolling his final night rounds.

James hurried to the elevator and punched the button for the third floor. Trauma Ward. The car couldn't move fast enough. He wanted to get the hell out, get underneath and push it! If he'd had any sense at all, he'd have stayed with House overnight!

He'd stopped by to see his friend after Gregg had come from surgery the evening before, but he was out like a light and pinned down with so many wires and IVs, he'd looked like a Christmas tree. The attending had told Wilson that House had come through the surgery pretty much okay. There had been no complications, but he was not to be disturbed … _period_ … until the next day.

Wilson knew he could have pulled rank and raised hell and gotten in there anyway … _I'm his prescribing physician … the man is my best friend … blah blah blah_ … but in the end, he had not pushed it. Instead, he stood at the doorway and looked at the frail body on the bed, cushioned with blankets and pillows, bandaged all the way up to _here_ and oblivious to the world in general and his immediate surroundings in particular.

After a time, Wilson turned around and went home and spent one of the most restless nights of his entire life.

And now …

The elevator door slid open and he bailed down the corridor, his French loafers pounding softly along the spotless ceramic tiles.

Room 317.

House was in a private room now, in accordance with his status at the hospital… and also to spare any hapless roommate who might have the ill fortune to draw the short straw and have to share the room with him. No one in ill health deserved to listen to the line of venom sure to follow from that barbed tongue! The very thought made Wilson smile in spite of his worry.

He paused in the open doorway a moment, just watching his friend breathe and getting used to the idea that Gregg would survive all right. The right side of House's body was nearest the door, and the massive field of white Wilson saw, covered every inch of skin that normally would have been visible.

Wilson hitched a sharp breath, shocked at the sight, and winced slightly at the look of him. The right side of House's face was a tapestry of gauze and adhesive tape, part of it darkened with smudged blood which had seeped through during the night. His right hand looked something like a white football, only the tips of his fingers and thumb visible where the bandages left off. Wilson figured they must have splinted the break, rather than casting it, since his palm was probably stitched, and infection was always a threat. The injured hand was elevated on a pillow, and smudges of red tinged the edges of the gauze here also, where they had not taped it fast.

His leg was a whole other story. It was elevated in a sling contraption which Wilson had seen a lot of on the Trauma Ward, but never thought to see strapped to his best friend. The bandages reached from high on House's thigh and extended all the way to his ankle. There was a heavy white sock on his foot and his knee was bent very slightly. Wilson knew that had probably been done to relieve some of the tension on the crippled leg, which House often had trouble straightening completely, even as a general rule. A mist-green PPTH sheet covered most of his body to the waist, except where it was tucked around the leg sling. The coverings on the leg wound were mainly gauze padding, loosely wrapped with wide elastic bandages. Wilson knew that if House's bad leg was held immobile, however briefly, it would cause him excruciating pain, and he would have that to contend with as well as the fresh injury. Wilson hoped they would keep him doped to the gills while this contraption needed to be in place, or House would be screaming; cursing God, Allah, Confucius, the Devil, and anyone else within hearing distance.

Quietly he stepped into the room and drew up a chair to the side of the bed. He listened to his friend's breathing with a doctor's ear and scanned the monitors along the wall with a doctor's eye. The IV bags were good, the Foley nearly fresh, and the morphine drip was set to 40mg. The pulse ox was on his left index finger, a BP cuff on his left arm. Nasal cannula inserted. House seemed to be resting comfortably.

James Wilson took a deep breath and relaxed at last. Prepared himself to settle in for the entire day if he had to.

Wilson leaned back in the visitor's chair and catnapped, awaiting the arrival of House's parents … or his friend's return to consciousness … or shift change … whichever came first.

Shifts changed around seven, and fresh personnel went to work replenishing the IVs, adjusting the morphine drip, backing the dosage off a little; changing the Foley bag and the 02. At 8:00 a.m., Norm Lyons, Orthopedist, stopped by to check House's hand and leg. A nurse gently cut away the bandages from around the splint with scissors and swabbed fresh antiseptic; got ready to change the gauze pads. The swelling had gone down some, but the injury's raw appearance was still bothersome. She swabbed the stitches with antiseptic yet again, but did not disturb the hand's position other than to pull the soiled bandages away. Norm Lyons supervised the redressing procedure and pronounced it satisfactory.

Wilson listened closely when Lyons was joined by one of the trauma surgeons and the two of them paused near House's bedside to compare notes. They were ready to change the bandages on House's leg and on his face. Wilson nodded greetings to the two men as they went to work, but stayed out of the way. They knew what they were doing. He noticed that the young trauma doc handled Gregory House with new respect, and wondered momentarily what had made the difference.

When they removed the bandages from the side of House's face, it was decided to leave them off. Two areas where tiny stitches darkened the skin would probably do better if exposed to air. They swabbed the side of his face, now darkening to deep purple bruises, and then left them alone. House's right eye was as black as a tire, its lid swollen. The side of his nose was mottled with more bruising, and his high cheekbones and temple still resembled a bad case of Poison Ivy. Down along his jaw line, spots of dried blood had been swabbed from his famous stubble, but fresh seepage welled up again. They decided to let that alone also in hopes that it would clot more quickly in the air.

At last, they released his leg from the sling and lowered it gently to the bed, positioned it on pillows and drew away the elastic bandages. The wound was not as serious as Wilson had first thought. The lacerated skin had been closed with butterflies, rather than conventional stitches, and though the local swelling remained intimidating, the wound looked clean, its edges joined completely with no blood leakage. Wilson's only worry was how close it had come to the big infarction scar. He lifted his head and turned a questioning glance toward Norm Lyons.

Lyons caught the look and nodded encouragingly. "It didn't enter the area of the scar tissue," he said. "It came close, but it should heal without complications other than a couple of months of 'pain-in-the-ass' stiffness … and if I know House, he won't come within a mile of the P. T. rooms … unless dragged!"

Wilson could only smile bleakly. How true! He watched while a nurse came in, took instructions from Lyons, then daubed the wound with antiseptic and covered the leg with gauze pads and adhesive tape to hold it. When she left, she took the elastic bandages with her, presumably to discard them.

About 8:30, House began to stir restlessly. He moaned and made an effort to shift his leg, then cried out in pain; tried to reach down to it with his injured hand. Wilson sprang to his bedside, closed gentle fingers around the bony wrist and cradled the damaged limb protectively. With his other hand he summoned the nurse.

House was waking.

"Whoa! Whoa! Stop it, House … Dammit! Keep still! You're going to hurt yourself more!" Wilson bent over the bed, using his entire body to block his friend's restless movements.

Two nurses came around the corner from the corridor, one of them with a syringe in her hand. They tried off the vein, swabbed the area and rammed it in. Ten seconds. House's body stilled. Groggily he looked up at Wilson, backing off now. "What … happened?"

"Easy!" Wilson cautioned. "Try to relax." He held the broken hand gingerly between his own; raised it to House's eye level so he could see it. "I think they backed off your morphine a little too far. Ride with it a moment! They're taking the level back up. I told them you couldn't tolerate not being able to shift your leg. I guess they didn't quite believe me."

Gregg House stared down at his throbbing bandaged hand and then back to the man who held it, trying to glare, but wincing when the skin on his bruised face pulled painfully. "Did all this crap happen … when the car went through the guard rail? Was I trying to skate on the side of my fucking head?" He paused to examine his position in the bed and assess the extent of his injuries. His mind would not cooperate. He felt himself beginning to float; felt the room tilting. He snorted in disgust, then winced at the action. "Ow-ow! Fuck!"

Both nurses, rechecking his vitals and the IVs, stood back, half alarmed. House glared at them, bleary eyed. "Don't you people have somewhere to be besides harassing a … poor fucked-up cripple?"

Both nurses gathered their paraphernalia and hurried out of the room.

Wilson stood grinning, feeling suddenly buoyed by the relief that stole over him. "For God's sake, House! Go back to sleep!" He placed Gregg's hand gently back on the pillow as the blue eyes fell closed again.

This time he knew he would be there all night.

oooooooooooooooooooo

21


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Dear Ol' Dad"

Lisa Cuddy made the phone call as soon as she unlocked her office door and dropped her sweater and large hand bag beside her desk. The call was inevitable and necessary, and an important part of her job. The "necessary" part didn't make it pleasant.

She'd called from home to check on House's condition and to ask how he had fared through the night. The charge nurse said he had spent a comfortable night, which in "doctor-speak" meant that he had probably been medicated halfway into the middle of next week! Cuddy gave the nurse who answered the phone the benefit of the doubt though. She'd probably had a difficult shift. She thanked the woman and then rang off.

Now the phone was ringing at the House house in upstate New York. It was answered after the third ring by a gruff male voice with a tinge of familiarity in it.

"House residence …"

"Is this John House?" Lisa asked pleasantly.

"Yes it is. Are you calling from the hospital?" He had her pegged right away.

"Yes I am, Mr. House. I'm Lisa Cuddy, Hospital Administrator, and I …"

He cut her off. "Don't you have lackeys to do this kind of stuff for you?"

She decided to give him back tit for tat. (Like father, like son.) "Once in awhile, yes, I do. But this concerns _my_ best doctor and _your_ only child. Sometimes the message supersedes the messenger."

There was a short pause. Then: "Yeah … okay. Here, I'll let you talk to my wife."

There were muffled sounds on the line for a few moments, and then a female voice took up the conversation. "Dr. Cuddy? This is Blythe House. How is Gregory? We were just getting ready to leave and drive down there …"

"Good morning, Mrs. House. Yes, this is Lisa Cuddy. I have some good news and some news that's not so good … and I'm sure he will be very glad to see you" She wasn't sure about that last part.

"Will Gregg be all right?"

"Yes he will. He'll be fine … but it will take a long time. His injuries were serious and he's going to be laid up for awhile.

"Tell me, please … and call me 'Blythe', won't you?"

This was a no-nonsense woman. Cuddy realized that right away. She guessed she had to be, to stay married to a man like blunt-talking John House. She could easily understand where her own Dr. Gregory House got his rude demeanor. "Very well," she agreed, "if you'll call me Lisa in return." She paused a moment, waiting for acknowledgment, but the phone line between them seemed to crackle with impatience. She shrugged mentally and continued. "First, your son suffered a serious injury to his crippled leg, and that's what concerns us the most at this time."

A muffled groan came over the line, followed by a loud exclamation from the gruff male voice in the background. "What is it, Blythe? What's happened to Gregg?"

Lisa waited while Blythe House hushed him firmly. "John, you could have taken the message yourself, but you handed the phone to me. Now please wait until we're finished talking!"

Things grew very quiet. Presently, Blythe's carefully controlled voice continued. "I'm sorry about that … but I believe you can understand … I married one, and then I raised another one who turned out just like him! About the only way you can shut them up is to yell louder than they do! Please go on. What were you telling me about my son's leg?"

Lisa Cuddy found herself smiling, even at the woman's anticipation of the bad news to follow. Lisa was going to like her. Very much! (And House had tried to tell her his mother hated confrontation!)

"I was saying … when his car went over the embankment, he was thrown clear, which no doubt kept him from being killed outright. The police said he was not wearing a seat belt. When the front of the car hit the ground, it angled slightly. The dashboard buckled and split apart and the windshield shattered.

"Dr. House's right leg was lacerated deeply all the way from the center of his patella … that is, his knee cap … almost to his right hip. The edge of the dashboard, they believe, raked along his thigh, causing the injury.

"His right hand probably got jammed through the steering wheel when he was thrown forward, and it fractured the metacarpal bones to his ring and middle fingers and dislocated the one to his index finger. He has a laceration at the base of his thumb that they can't explain; possibly from the bottom edge of the dash. He took a glancing blow to the side of his head, probably also by the steering wheel. Just hard enough to disorient his thinking and blur his vision. The side of his face was scratched and cut by glass fragments and pieces of broken trim.

"Body scans revealed that his back muscles were wrenched badly enough that when he wandered away from the scene of the accident in a dazed state and finally collapsed, he was unable to move again, and lapsed in and out of consciousness until he was found.

"I can't tell you more than that right now, but I'll be available to get with you when you arrive here. You said you were leaving immediately, correct?"

"Yes," Blythe House said. "We were ready to walk out the door when you called. We would have come down last evening, but we spoke earlier to Gregg's friend Jim Wilson, and he told us it would be useless to arrive before he woke up … and they hadn't finished with his surgeries yet. We should be there in three hours or less."

"I'll be here. Come to my office on the first floor … across from the main entrance."

"Okay then. And thank you Lisa. I appreciate this very much."

"You're welcome, Blythe. Goodbye."

As she hung up the phone, Cuddy wondered how Gregg's parents had come to know James Wilson …

"John, go ahead and load our suitcases in the back of the truck while I get the thermos of coffee from the kitchen and check around to be sure we haven't forgotten anything."

He was bent forward and down with both palms on the handles of the large suitcases, ready to heft them. He rolled his eyes and crunched his face sideways until his left eye squeezed shut. He paused and looked up, glaring at her for a moment with what passed on his part for pained forbearance. "Woman, what the hell does it look like I'm doing?"

"Don't swear, John. It doesn't become you," she said. Her voice was a little unsteady, and he knew her thoughts were with their son. He also knew she wasn't talking directly to him anymore, but to herself; that way she had of reassuring herself when things got difficult. "We should probably have done all this yesterday as soon as Dr. Cuddy called to tell us the police had found Gregory. I don't know why we didn't. But we didn't! Then Jim Wilson called, and again we waited and still didn't get things ready."

"Blythe … " John spoke softly, trying to get through to her. "Wilson said Gregg was still in surgery and it would be useless for us to show up at the hospital at night before they knew anything. It's much better this way. You talked to Dr. Cuddy and she said Gregg is going to be perfectly all right …"

Her head snapped up. He had her attention now. "Oh John, how can you say such a thing? Gregg will never be … 'all right' … and now this on top of everything else. He was in constant pain before … and God only knows what this accident will do to him. His crippled leg is hurt again … his cane hand is fractured and he can't use the other one because of that _stupid_ LaCrosse injury he never reported! Can you imagine what it will be like for him? Jim didn't say it in words, but Gregg isn't going to be able to walk for … months!"

"We don't know that …"

"Yes we do! _I_ do! I'm his mother."

"Yeah, and I'm his father. Please don't turn this into a 'which-of-us-loves-him-more' contest!" John House knew he couldn't win. Where Gregg was concerned, he'd never had a chance. He'd spent too much time being an absentee Dad. He hefted the two suitcases, loaded with everything the two of them would need for a week, and started toward the front door.

Behind him, his wife's eyes bored into his back. He could almost form a perfect mental image of the bleak defiance in her eyes. Resigned, he kept walking and elbowed his way through the screen door.

The big 2005 silver Dodge Ram 1800 stood like a guardian in the driveway next to the front porch. John put the suitcases on the ground next to the tailgate, reached to his pocket and extracted the keys. He beeped the vehicle open, put the keys back in his pocket and lifted the rear window of the cap. He put the tailgate down and stretched the cargo net across the box. He slid both suitcases across until they nestled against the net, and then closed everything and went up front to pull the hood release.

John "Blackjack" House knew he didn't really need to do this. The truck was barely a year old, and did not have that many miles on it. He had bought his first one with part of his separation pay the day he'd retired from the military. A year ago, he'd finally traded that 1991 model for this one. This brute would be his stand-in for the "F/A-18E Super Hornet" now!

He did not need to check the water level, or the oil, or the tautness of the belts, or the transmission or power steering fluids, but he did it anyway. The gas tank was topped to the point that the needle gauge stood way to the right of the "full" mark. He had been a U. S. Marine, after all, and there were deeply ingrained rituals in him, instilled there by the military, that he would adhere to religiously for the rest of his life.

Semper Fi!

They came off Route 6 and headed onto 206 South, which would take them on a straight shot right down the middle of New Jersey. They should be in Princeton by noon, depending on traffic. Scenery shot by the big silver Dodge in a multi-colored blur. The highway was dotted with billboards, roadside signs, unsightly advertisements, and every possible method the human race could think of to defile the work of nature.

John House set the cruise control at 70mph and leaned back in the driver's seat. Across from him, his wife sat erect, held stiffly in place by the seat belt. Her head was turned slightly toward the passenger-side window, her eyes averted. John noticed they were suspiciously moist. He reached his hand across the wide seat and clasped her small hand with his big paw, not knowing what to say that would comfort her, but knowing she was suffering in silence for their son.

"Hey woman …" he began. "Penny for your thoughts …"

She looked across at him angrily for a moment, and then schooled her features, and her expression softened. Her husband was suffering too. Blythe returned the pressure of his fingers on hers, and let a smile find her lips, if not her eyes. At that moment the tears overflowed and she bit down hard on her lip. "Oh John, I promised myself I wouldn't cry … stiff upper lip and all that … but I guess it isn't working. I'm so worried about Gregg …"

"I know," he said. "Me too. But we have to remember he's a grown man. He'll take this like a man and he'll handle it like a man … the same way he handled it the last time."

Blythe clenched her eyes shut, suddenly thrust back into remembering the "last time." Not one single person involved in the drama of the leg infarction had "handled it like a man". That terrible life-changing year had aged them all and changed the course of Gregg's life forever. He had gone from a healthy, brilliant rebel to a silent, bitter recluse in less than a heartbeat.

That painful first year had seen Gregg struggle to maintain his dignity beneath the harsh scrutiny of friendly sympathy and pity. His friends had watched him, appalled, as his attitude went from brilliant sarcasm to all-consuming anger. He cast aside all offers of assistance and reassurance while he battled to regain use of a limb that no longer worked; no longer even held him up. They watched him battle with himself over the necessity of walking with crutches, mortified and embarrassed to be caught depending on them for mobility in front of anyone else; as though it was entirely his fault that they'd had to become a part of his existence!

Blythe and John had stood by their son stubbornly, even as he tried to push them away along with everyone else. They watched sadly, even as Gregg's former friends finally abandoned him one by one; even Stacy, the love of his life … disheartened at being told again and again to: "Get the fuck out of my life! I don't need you to stare at me and I don't need your sympathy!"

Finally there were only three people remaining: Gregg's parents and Dr. James Wilson!

After that, when Blythe had called Gregg's place in the evenings to ask how he was, the phone would almost always be answered by Wilson who, in turn, would hand it to Gregg so he wouldn't have to get up. It wasn't long after that that Gregg began to refuse to take her calls …

Now it was happening all over again.

Blythe held fast to John's hand as the truck sped toward Princeton. Her husband had always been a rock to lean on, and she believed he had loved her unconditionally, their son too, in spite of the nomadic life and the unrelenting military regimen.

Her mind traveled back to the beginning.

1956.

They were freshmen in college. Penn State. They were both a long way from home, both homesick. They were still getting used to university life, learning a whole new set of study habits, a whole new social structure, a whole new and frightening world opening up for both of them.

They were in the same physics class and they became friends their first week on campus. She was in the Blue Band. He was on the Nittany Lions football team. She played clarinet, flute and sax. He was a lowly freshman and not quite big enough to be on the first string. He did manage to get enough game time to sport a few black and blue marks and sore muscles now and then. He idolized Joe Paterno and she made fun of him for that. Her hero was Elvis, who had climbed meteorically to the top of the charts and made quite a splash. John made fun of "Elvis the Pelvis" and swiveled his hips dramatically. She glowered at him. By mid-term they were going steady. They campaigned for Adlai Stevenson, but that didn't work out. By year's end, they were engaged.

They were married in June of 1958 at the end of their sophomore year, and honeymooned in Bermuda. That island was all the rage that year! They listened to the Beatles, Santo and Johnny and Slim Whitman, and danced to Perry Como and Tony Bennett and Patti Page and Rosemary Clooney.

When they returned to campus for their junior year, Blythe discovered that she was pregnant. They were surprised and a little scared. She finished out the year, but Gregory Alan House made his debut to the world on June 11, 1959, at five in the morning.

Blythe dropped out of college to care for her baby, a strapping eight-pounder with the lungs of a Banshee and the appetite of a sword swallower. "Greggie" was a restless child from the moment he escaped from her womb, yelling at the tops of his lungs. She encouraged his inquisitive nature and soothed his bumps and bruises when he got himself in trouble for sticking his little bitty nose where it didn't belong.

John didn't play football during his senior year, but buckled down to study, while still juggling a part-time job as a mechanic at a local Chrysler dealership. He was displaying an interest in the military, and pouring over Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps literature. The prospect of being a military wife and raising a child within that gypsy way of life intimidated Blythe a little, but if that was John's destiny, then so be it. She would handle whatever came with it.

Two weeks to the day after he'd graduated from Penn State, not on the Dean's list, but close, John announced that he'd spoken to the Marine recruiter. Within the month he would be off for Officer Candidate School and flight training, and then to pursue a career as a Marine Corps pilot.

At first, Blythe was shocked. She had not expected his decision to come so soon. Then she threw her arms around him and told him she would support him without reservation in any ongoing career decisions he made. John reached down and picked up his eighteen-month-old son and swung him gleefully in the air, while Greggie gurgled in delight.

John "Blackjack" House won his wings and his lieutenant's bars easily. They were shipped immediately to Marine Corps Air Station, Iwakuni, Japan.

It was a beautiful country, but Blythe was lonely at first. John was away flying sorties a lot, while she remained with Greggie at the base housing. Other military wives were friendly, but it wasn't the same. She missed John, and spent increasing amounts of time with her son, taking him here and there to sightsee and mingle with the native people. By the time he was three years old, he was already speaking as much Japanese as English.

When Greggie was three years old they were transferred back to the states … Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point; Havelock, North Carolina. It wasn't long before the child picked up a southern drawl that had his hard core Marine Dad in stitches. He was not only a smart child, well above average, but a talented mimic as well.

A few weeks after his fourth birthday, he looked up defiantly at his mother and said: "Mommy, don't call me 'Greggie' anymore. That's a baby name, and I'm not a baby!"

Blythe saluted solemnly and said: "Yessir. As you wish, sir."

Gregg returned the salute and said: "Very well, cadet! As you were!" The baby nickname went, after that, the way of the dinosaur.

As the years passed by and their family moved from country to country and state to state, something changed so gradually that none of them had any inkling what it was until it was far too late to change it back. John and Blythe talked sometimes about trying to have another child, but nobody mentioned it when, month after month, it didn't happen.

The United States, it seemed, had become the world's watchdog. Its military was ordered here and there to act as hall monitors for the entire planet. Where conflicts arose, the United States sent a patrol of nuns armed with rulers to smite the knuckles of the perpetrators and send the violators to the principle's office for time out. It seemed as though no country could express a legitimate beef with a neighbor anymore without "Big Brother" peering over its shoulder and shaking a finger and saying, "Tut tut now! Mustn't do that! Big Brother doesn't like it!"

More and more, Captain Blackjack House found himself in the role of Big Brother. He didn't care much for the assignment and voiced his opinion. Some of it rubbed off at home.

Gregg House, always curious, always reaching out with a youngster's inquisitive mind and voracious appetite for knowledge, questioned every unclassified order and challenged every restriction and every rule. He had turned into a loner who made few friends. That endeavor, he'd found very early on, was rather useless. Every time he found that he liked someone, the Marine Corps stepped in with new orders and a new promotion for his Dad, and they were off to far horizons yet again.

After a time, he began to avoid his father and everything to do with the military. He played every sport he could put his hand to, and excelled at them all. He read volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia for fun, and memorized topographical maps of every country in which he set foot. By the age of twelve, he was fluent in three languages and could compose in two of them.

Anywhere he saw a piano he would sit down before its keyboard and pick out melodies that unfurled from within his own head. Other kids avoided him. He was different. He was way smart, and the "in" crowd was beginning to shy away from that stuff.

Gregg could have cared less. "Got the world by the tail on a down-hill drag," he would brag. But he didn't. Not really.

Blythe finally got pregnant again, but lost the child in the second trimester. She had to have an emergency hysterectomy after hemorrhaging so badly they nearly lost her. She was in the hospital for two weeks while John and Gregg snarled at each other at home. Talk of another child dried up like a puddle in the desert.

By the time Gregg was old enough for college he knew more than most of his professors and was well into fluency in a seventh language. He had a collection of medical books that would amaze most doctors, and he and his father were almost completely alienated.

John was a Lieutenant Colonel now, but for all his rank, he did not know how to talk to his brilliant, arrogant son, and did not know how to handle the long silences. And so he didn't. Blythe watched them both, heavy hearted, but she had long ceased trying to make peace between them. They spoke to each other only when necessary and in one-word sentences, and avoided each other the rest of the time.

When Gregg finally left home, (he described "home" only as "that cracker box"), he did not write or call for months. Blythe kept up with his life only through contact with his college administrator. The man was not surprised. He had seen this confusing phenomenon in military families many times before.

Gregg graduated from college with highest honors and moved on to medical school. There he careened madly into the wonders of tobacco, drugs, women and alcohol. Shortly afterward, a series of medical school mishaps soon began to dog his heels while he fought his daily battles with the real world. He found himself thrown out of one university and enrolled in another. He began to guard his backside!

He was discovering there were a few people of his acquaintance whose intelligence did not match his own, but who were more than willing to lure him into trouble out of greed and jealousy, and who chose to celebrate when his arrogant demeanor brought him disgrace with members of the faculty. Gregg realized thereafter that he had to learn to spot the crap from his "lesser" peers, and either avoid it from the onset, or take it on head to head. After a few strains and sprains and bloody noses which he handed out, as well as suffered, he began to master the give-and-take of adult life.

Something his father had said to him early in his youth began to make sense in an ironic fashion: "Always cover your own Six, Gregory!"

And he did.

John House retired with the rank of Bird Colonel after a distinguished career of thirty five years. He and Blythe bought a home near Ithaca, New York.

They were still living there when Gregg suffered the infarction. Their son had fought the obligation of telling his parents about the seriousness of the injury every step of the way, and managed to delay their knowledge of his illness for more than a week. But the call finally came, and that was how they'd got to know Dr. James Wilson.

They had met Stacy once or twice, briefly, and liked her, but by the time they arrived in New Jersey, their son was becoming a bitter cripple and Stacy was gone, probably forever. Gregg had verbally abused her until she couldn't take it any longer, and fled. The only friend he had left was James Wilson, the young Oncologist who had been Gregg's sidekick for years, and the only person laid-back enough to let Gregg's vitriolic angst roll off his back like water off a duck.

For his part, Gregg barely tolerated his parents' presence. He hated for them to see him tethered to a hospital bed, pathetically fragile and pathetically helpless. He loathed the presence of the wheelchair no more than an arm's length away, and the crutches racked at the back of the chair. He hated the tubes and the urine bag and the med pumps and the nurses who administered them, and most of all, he hated himself.

He lay pale and feeble and exhausted and in torturous pain. The only thing that kept him going and kept him alive was his rage at everything and everyone that touched him or in any way tried to lend him support.

Only his mother could he tolerate by his bedside to touch gentle hands to his tear-streaked face and run her fingers lovingly through his tangled hair. Only Blythe was given the privilege of leaning her warm cheek against his swollen eyelids and whispering words of comfort where only his ears could hear them. Only she was allowed to shed the tears of a mother's devotion in return as she wiped his own wetness away with a corner of her blouse so that others could not see his humiliation and shame.

She was the only one to hear his whispered plea: "Oh God, Mom … I hate this! I hate it! Why, Mom? Why?"

There was no answer for either of them.

Not then.

There still wasn't.

Blythe looked across to her husband, sitting stiffly on the other side of the truck, hands braced on the steering wheel.

His face was rigid, his eyes wet, but fixed on the road ahead. His mouth was drawn downward at the edges, making him look older; clueless. She had never before in their entire married life seen Blackjack House look helpless. Hopeless.

She knew he loved his son more than that son had any idea. But he also had no hope of ever gathering within himself the simple grace it took to be able to tell him so …

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

30


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"A Friend of Yours …"

Marty Owen put down the wire-bristled dog brush and patted the bench at her side. "C'mere, boy," she said softly.

Across from her, Baxter looked at her suspiciously, looked down at the brush and looked up into her face again. He licked his chops and whined faintly, but did not move from the spot.

Marty laughed softly and patted the bench again. "Boy, you sure are a chicken," she said. "Don't you feel a lot better now that you're bathed and combed? It's gotta be more comfortable than the way you were yesterday. You turned out to be a very handsome fellow, you know that? Doctor Wilson will be here in a little while, and he'll hardly know you. You don't even look like the same dog."

His head tilted from side to side, small eyes watching every move she made, ears cocking, then folding back against his skull. He sneezed explosively, and a front paw came up and rubbed at his face. There was fuzz in his nose and it tickled. He stared at her for another moment, and sneezed again.

Marty giggled.

Bernie stepped out the doorway into the kennel run and saw the two of them sitting there; two stubborn children making faces at one another across a breakfast table. He grinned and shrugged broad shoulders, pointing at the beautiful brown dog sitting in the sun and gleaming like a new penny. "He's a pretty animal," Bernie said. "He's going to belong to a crippled man … the one the police rescued from the field the other day."

Marty nodded. "I know. He's gonna love Baxter. Baxter already loves him. He saved Dr. House's life."

"That's why I came out to get you," Bernie continued. "Think you can coax him out to the waiting room? Dr. Wilson is here."

"Really? Ya hear that, Bax? … you're finally gonna go home!"

He barked. Threw his head in the air and barked three times. Loudly. Answering barks echoed back from the kennel. Then he got up and walked across to where Marty Owen sat. Laid his muzzle in her lap. Marty put her arms around his ruff and hugged him. He really was a beautiful animal. And a smart one. Dr. House would be happy to have him. Reluctantly, she got to her feet, causing him to step back a step or two.

"C'mon, Bax! Time to go meet another friend of yours."

He followed her eagerly, back into the kennel, through the cage area where other dogs barked another greeting at his passage; barked their farewells.

Marty fastened his new leash to his brand new shiny chain and lead him proudly into the waiting room out front.

There were a few people sitting there, but it was easy to figure out who Dr. Wilson was. He was the only one without a dog or cat beside him or on his lap.

The young doctor got to his feet with a smile of surprise. Marty could not believe how very handsome he was. "Is this … the same dog that was in the culvert the other day?" His genuine surprise and delight was music to her ears. His smile was gentle; soft. His voice the sexy purr of a movie star … but educated, modulated.

Marty blushed so furiously that she could feel every freckle turning bright red. "Yeah, this is him. There was a collar buried in his fur, and it had part of a name on it. I think his name was 'Baxter" once … in case you guys want him to keep that name … of course, you really don't have to …" Marty knew she was babbling. Caught herself and shrugged self-consciously. "How is he? Was he hurt really bad? Is he getting better?"

Wilson smiled and thought for a moment. He did not care to reveal too much to this room full of people, but the newspaper story had assured that people were indeed curious. "He's … better," Wilson said cautiously. "His leg is hurt, and he has a broken hand. But he was very lucky, and he'll heal in time."

There were murmurs of sudden interest in the waiting room, and Marty Owen grinned. "I'm so glad to hear that. Just wait 'til he sees Baxter!"

James Wilson smiled again, thinking warily of what Gregory House might think of this whole arrangement. Wilson had no idea if Gregg would remember the incident at all. He was liable to go through the roof when he was told he had just become the proud owner of a big brown mongrel dog!

Dr. Wilson knelt on the floor and held out his fingers for the dog to sniff. He made no sudden or threatening moves; did not want to frighten this animal which he had been sent specifically to round up.

"Bring the mutt!" House's final words before he'd finally lost consciousness while they were loading him into the ambulance.

Wilson's only response: "Your wish is my command!"

Baxter stretched out his neck to sniff at the fingers, then apparently found them to be friendly. The long pink tongue came out and chanced a lick. Then he sat down on his haunches and grinned a doggie grin. His teeth were no longer yellow, but white. Marty had brushed them while he had tried to eat the toothpaste and slobbered on her hands.

Marty handed him the leash and the dog went to him easily. Sat down and began to pant. The people in the waiting room were unusually quiet. Watching.

One of the men finally had to ask. "Is this the same dog that led the police to where Dr. House was lying hurt?"

Marty and Dr. Wilson both nodded. "He's the one." Marty said. "Now he's going to go live with the man he rescued."

"If his muzzle was a bit longer and his ears tipped forward a little, he'd almost look like a purebred collie," one woman offered. "He's a lucky dog. Will you be taking him home to the crippled man?"

Wilson smiled indulgently while cringing inside. He was glad House wasn't here to hear this. He'd have practically bitten the poor woman's ears off!

"Yes," he finally said. "I am." He got to his feet and walked over to the counter. Paid the healthy vet bill, got a receipt. He accepted the leash from Marty Owen a last time and reached across to take her hand.

"You've done a beautiful job with … Baxter," he said. "Thank you. I'm sure Dr. House will keep the name. I'm going to tell him it was your idea. Marty, right?"

"Yeah, that's me … Marthann Owen. Thanks, Dr. Wilson … and good luck." Marty almost swooned as he let go her hand and turned to leave.

Bax followed him obediently out the door.

Wilson looked in the rear-view mirror as he drove back toward Princeton, only to find it blocked completely by the large, shaggy body. Sometime in his life, Baxter had certainly ridden in a car before. He was watching out the window with an innocent kind of animal joy. His tongue hung from the side of his mouth and his ears worked back and forth like the gears of a fork lift.

Wilson wondered what Lisa Cuddy would think when she got home tonight and found a big dog wandering around her fenced-in back yard. He could certainly not turn Bax loose in his apartment, and he doubted very much whether House would appreciate dog hair all over his place either. There were a lot of things that still needed to be worked out with this strange undertaking. Only one thing, at this point, was certain:

Wilson had delivered the goods!

oooooooooooooooooooo

The silver Dodge Ram's powerful Michelin tires grabbed the miles in front of it, and threw them, screaming, behind it with the power of a badger digging a burrow. The two people in its cab were riding quietly now, each lost in thought, each wondering what they would find when they arrived at their destination, still a little over a hundred miles ahead.

John and Blythe finished off the thermos of coffee about twenty five miles back, and were as calm now as they could possibly be. They looked across at each other from time to time, and their eyes met, held, and then moved away again toward other vistas. If they spoke now, tears might not be far behind, and so they played it safe, listening to a quiet Classic Country station. George Jones offered his rendition of "Don't Let the Stars Get In Your Eyes", and they smiled at each other … remembering Perry Como's version of it from the days when they were first married.

Blythe let her body undulate with the motion of the big truck as it rode the uneven pavement like a yacht rode the ocean waves. She leaned the back of her head into the headrest and tried to clear her mind of the constant worry over her brilliant, tortured son.

Jim Wilson had told her that Gregg would recover, but she'd detected an undertone in the timbre of his gentle voice that suggested there were things he was holding back. Jim watched over his hurt friend unobtrusively, covering his concern with a veneer of sarcasm and cynicism that almost equaled Gregg's own. He would not be caught dead pitying Gregory House, but he was _there_, like a rock, if Gregg stumbled. Blythe admired him and was grateful that her son had such a friend. Not many people were so lucky to have someone as loyal as Dr. James Wilson.

The country station began to play "Elizabeth" by the Statlers and then segued into Mel Tillis and "Coca Cola Cowboy".

She sighed and stole a quick look across the seat to study John's face. He was still guarded and flinty eyed with determination. That old "don't-let-them-see-you-sweat" Marine attitude was so deeply entrenched in his makeup that he still stiffened up whenever there was a situation that touched his emotions. If you were hurting, you sucked it up. You acted like a _man_! "Ten-Hut!"

Such hogwash! She closed her eyes, wondering what he was thinking …

Blackjack knew she'd been watching him.

(He almost always thought of himself as "Blackjack!" The nickname was a badge of honor, and he wore it like a shield, even now).

His wife had _always _watched him; always gauged his moods by the look in his ice-blue eyes. Told him so, too! The eye thing was one of those distinctive physical traits he'd passed down to his only child. By the time Gregg was an adult, however, he had gone his father one better; his stare could have bored holes through concrete!

John House sometimes suspected that he and his son were more alike than they were different. That suspicion on his part created a lot of tension between them, because it made John uncomfortable. Like his father before him, Gregg had long ago picked up a propensity to play devil's advocate at every turn. No matter what the question or the discussion or the argument, Gregg would lie in wait for a stance to be established on one side or the other, and then dig his own entrenchment deep on the opposing side. He was good at it; better than John was, and it honed his mental and verbal skills to a whetted edge. At some point during Gregg's teen years, his intelligence approached critical mass, and he even began to intimidate his own father.

Not something Blackjack would choose to admit: not even to himself!

Colonel House had not been around much for his son's major milestones while he was growing up. Blackjack was in the skies over the Sea of Japan when Gregg took his first steps at the tender age of ten months. He was on TDY in the Middle East when the boy lost his first tooth. He was flying sorties in South Viet Nam when Gregg graduated from kindergarten and began first grade.

Most of the time Blythe and the boy lived in authorized military housing when Blackjack had to do tours of duty in Italy or Spain or the Far East or some other exotic locale. But sometimes the dangers of his job did not allow them access to foreign lands, and those were the times they remained stateside while their husband and father became a shadowy stranger for months at a time.

Sometimes John House viewed his encounters with his son in inches and feet. Every time they managed to make a new connection, Gregg seemed to have grown another inch or two, and moved further away from him a few more feet. During his service "in country" during the Viet Nam War, Gregg grew an astounding six inches. After that, every departure brought further estrangement. Then they didn't know each other anymore.

Even when they did come together and the Marine officer attempted to exert his place as a parent, Gregg was no longer listening. He'd already heard all the "Gung Ho" speeches about integrity and honor. A hundred times over! He didn't want to hear his absentee father lecture him again on military fitness, or personal hygiene, or keeping his personal "quarters" cleaned up.

He turned a deaf ear when harangued about "policing his underwear drawer", or getting another "Gawdamn" haircut.

("You look like a gawdamned Old English Sheepdog!")

("Oh yeah? Well guess what! I'd rather look like an Old English Sheepdog than _you_!")

Moppy haired Gregg wanted to be left-the-hell alone by this strange man in a Hallowe'en costume! He retreated to his medical books and his sports teams and his piano. If his hair dragged across his shoulders, so-fucking-_what? _ It was _his_ hair!

Some of their bitter arguments still bothered John House to this day. A black wall of silence had grown between them. John wondered if his crippled son still hated him so …

All his failings as a father came back to haunt Blackjack House while the miles passed by beneath the big Dodge pickup. He had many reasons why his life had played out in the manner it had; many excuses for all the times he was not there: Service to one's country. Being where he was needed (that one was questionable indeed!). Patriotism. But when it came down to cases, Marines did not make excuses, and it all boiled down to one thing: Danger! John House's existence had thrived on danger and excitement. Living in some soap opera "wedded bliss" and raising a little kid did not do it for him.

Up _There_!

High above the Earth, surrounded only by blue sky and a fragile metal shell, causing his adrenalin to pump through him in constant overload was almost better than sex. Better than having all the money in the world. Better even, than a good woman at his side, and a little son who adored him.

Regrets! Regrets for being an adrenaline junkie. Regrets for being a young, danger-addicted fool!

Now that he was older and the glory days far behind him, he had pause to reflect on the responsibilities he'd run away from as a young man. But as far as his ongoing relationship with his son was concerned, it was what it was. Now he had to chew it up and swallow it, and hope that one day he and Gregg could come to one accord and find a way to put aside their differences.

Worse than any peril he had ever placed himself into as a Marine pilot, John's greatest moment of horror came when he first visited Gregg after the thing that happened to his leg. Medical jargon was way beyond his ken, and no matter how often the infarction was explained to him, even in layman's terms, John didn't get it. "Infarctions" were life-threatening things that happened to people's hearts … not their legs!

That Gregg was in desperate pain was obvious. Standing in the corridor outside his room and listening to his son scream in agony was not only too horrible for John to listen to, but it made him feel embarrassment for Gregg. No Marine would allow himself to be reduced to that kind of cowardice.

Another regret John still held in his heart!

Blythe had thought nothing of going in there and squeezing Gregg's hand during the worst of his pain when Stacy couldn't stand it any longer. She would stroke his brow and whisper to him those things that only a mother could articulate. It didn't matter whether he could hear her or not. She did it.

All John could do was stand there with his guts in a knot and feel embarrassment … _embarrassment!_ … for Gregg's inability to contain his screams. During those hours before his second surgery when they tore out most of his leg muscle, he had been reduced to a human being's lowest common denominator; a feral animal in the throes of death, keening out its life forces in final violence and humiliation.

John could not believe that he had been so unfeeling, or more accurately, so _feeling_ that he'd had to cut those emotions off; revert to his Marine training, because he couldn't handle what was happening to his child. Perhaps he had been embarrassed, not for Gregg in his uncontainable pain, but for himself in his inability at the time … to allow a _feeling_ to break through the façade. _Suck it up! Be a man! Don't let them see you sweat!_

Blythe had no problem letting her emotions show. She had wept, not on his, her husband's, shoulder, but on the shoulder of young Jim Wilson, her son's best friend. And in the meantime, Blackjack House, pride of the Marines, stood stiff and controlled and alone in the middle of the corridor outside his terribly ill son's hospital room.

He remembered glancing at Dr. Wilson's face, above Blythe's bowed head, and catching the gleam of wetness in the compassionate dark eyes. For a moment he felt almost absolved of his rigid formal stance. Those eyes told him in a fleeting instant, that the man understood his reluctance. If he let go of his fierce grip on his emotions, he would be reduced to a huddled mass, weeping in the nearest corner.

Wilson knew, and he did not rat him out. John had never found a way to let the man know he'd been grateful for that. And he had never mentioned it to anyone. Neither, he believed, had Wilson!

John House sighed and tried to reconcile himself with all the mistakes that had gone before. He would not chide his son for having to use a handicap parking space. He would not stare at the cane and make remarks about "two legs". He would not tease him about not having a "chick" on each arm. He would just be glad that Gregg was still alive!

He chanced a look across the seat of the truck, and found that Blythe was looking at him quizzically and smiling that "smile" she had that always bugged the hell out of him.

He smiled back. They were ten minutes from Princeton.

oooooooooooooooooooo

37


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"Visitation Rights"

He floated to the surface of consciousness gently. Sunlight streamed in the windows to his left and the sterile hospital room glared with brightness. He squinted his eyes, trying to accustom his vision to the shock. It made his face hurt a little.

He was not in pain. Exactly. But the surface of his skin felt tight, squeezing in on him. Or maybe it was his system's reaction to the pain meds that messed with his senses and just made it feel that way. He did not try to move. Comfort was, after all, comfort. Why try to fix what wasn't broke, right? Or in his case, even try to fix what _was_ broke!

Without moving his head, he let his range of vision travel to its limits across his own body. His bad leg was elevated on a pillow, and there were bandages adhesive-taped in place beginning at his knee and reaching nearly to his hip. The rest of his leg from knee to foot was bare and discolored from bruising, and he could detect slight swelling along it, because his shin bone had gone into hiding beneath the flesh. Vaguely, he remembered looking at it some time before this, when he'd come to consciousness earlier; when the bandages had reached all the way to his ankle. He wondered what kind of new damage had been done to his weakened thigh … and what … if anything … it would do to his ability to walk. And when the pain came back after the IVs were removed … how bad would it be this time?

Involuntarily, his forehead knit between his brows and then he felt the returning twinges of pain. Part of his right eye socket cast a purple shadow that intruded where it should not be, and it made him realize that the eye was swollen, and from the shade of it that he could make out, there was probably a shiner as well. Oh joy!

His right hand was heavy. Not painful … not yet … but working on it. Ponderously heavy. Each finger weighed a ton. The "skin-stretching" thing was especially annoying over the back of it, in the area of the metacarpals.

A flash of sudden memory painted a mind picture of a filthy runoff culvert beneath a road somewhere. And a dirty brown dog. He'd been flat on his back, drowning in agony. He'd lifted his right hand and tried to see why it was radiating with such all-consuming pain. He'd spotted the broken bones right away; displaced beneath the skin, raising a deforming knot close to his knuckles. The blood that glued his fingers together had scared him a little. The injury was very serious.

He raised his arm and stared in horror at his splinted, bandaged hand. His _right_ splinted, bandaged hand! A cold wave of premonition washed over him as the implications sank in.

He would not be using his cane. Not for a long time. He would not be using crutches either. He would not be walking for a long … _long_ … time. That left only a single alternative: a dreaded wheelchair. And someone to push it.

In spite of all his efforts to control it, a cry of utter desolation escaped from between his lips, and he moaned his despair out loud.

Gregory House heard a sound somewhere off to his right; a deep sigh of indrawn breath. Someone nearby was waking from sleep. He was incapable, however, of moving his body into a position where he could see anything. His tethers held him quite immobile where he was. Instantly, he regretted even the small outburst he'd permitted himself in the moment of discovering his own helplessness. He steeled his nerves, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Held it.

An expanse of white jacket caught the corner of his eye; a professional-laundry press job. A field of professional-length starched fabric hove into view above dark brown gabardine trousers. Physician's lab coat. House cracked an eye open to steal a glance and again felt a tug of pain at the side of his face. He winced. _Ow! Fuck!_

He heard a soft chuckle emanate from the area close to his right side, and immediately blew out the strangulated breath he'd been holding. _Wilson!_ He detested his own vulnerability, but Wilson was the one person who'd seen it all before and could be trusted to keep his own counsel.

"You remember the song, 'Canadian Sunset'?" Wilson was asking softly, hovering over the side of the bed and looking down smugly. "Well, it's right there … the whole colorful spectrum in all its glory … all over the side of your face."

House glared impotently upward, but said nothing. His thoughts were all right there though … naked and raw … in his eyes.

Wilson smiled quietly and began checking vitals. He'd seen the wounded look flash for a moment and then quickly covered up again. He did not, however, allow any sympathy to show on his face or echo in his own eyes. House was hurt enough, and beneath the deep façade of inscrutability, very fragile emotionally. Wilson would allow his friend to labor awhile longer under an illusion. Let him believe that everyone thought this incident was just one more in a long line of narrow escapes that had marked House's life in recent years.

He finished checking the IVs and the monitors and stood back within House's line of vision with hands on hips. "If I didn't know better," he said conversationally, "I might begin to think you had a death wish …"

House looked up at him, purposely schooling his face into that "innocent-little-boy" look he affected so well. "Me?" His voice sounded dry; unused.

Wilson dumped a few ice chips from a thermos near the bed into a small plastic cup and held it to House's lips. "Yeah … you! Here. You sound like shit. You're lucky to be alive. Are you in pain?"

House sucked on the ice, rolling it around in his mouth; tried crunching it with his teeth. But the cuts on the side of his face made him quit that in a hurry. "No. I just feel … tight. But that's from the inflammation. I know that. How bad is … whatever happened to my leg? And how bad are the breaks in my hand? I won't be able to walk, will I?"

Wilson pursed his lips and looked down at the floor. Business as usual. House wanted truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

"Your leg is lacerated deeply along the entire length from knee to hip. You can't bear weight. Fortunately for you, it didn't extend into the region of your surgical scar … or your leg would probably be done for!

"Two metacarpals are broken, and a third dislocated. Your hand is going to be disabled for a few months, and you're going to have to do some tough rehab if you expect to use your cane again. The cuts on your face and the side of your head are superficial, and you should be shed of the 'Hallowe'en Mask' look in a week or two. Again, you were fortunate. You don't have a concussion. Your Corvette is history.

"And … no … you won't be able to walk for quite some time … sorry …"

There was no answer. Wilson chanced a look back to the man in the bed. The blue eyes held that far-away look that House sometimes affected when his brain was processing information and deciding where to go with it next. Wilson waited patiently, feeling nearly as helpless as House looked.

A full minute of sustained silence followed, neither man intruding on the other's thought processes; both considering the implications of the passing on of that information, and the steps that would have to be taken in order to reconcile it.

Then Wilson saw the blue eyes close and the thin lips purse with bleak understanding and no alternatives. House had quickly come to the same conclusion that Wilson and Cuddy had come to the day before, and for which Wilson already had drawn up a few ideas of his own.

"This is unacceptable." That first admission was uttered quietly. Deeply frustrated with his body's added limitations … and no one to blame but himself. Then Wilson saw the left hand clench into a fist, the wounded body stiffen, enraged.

The second declaration, a shout of defiance:

"This. Is. _Fucking! Unacceptable!"_

"House!"

Wilson watched his friend fold backward into the pillow beneath his head, the tension of his all-consuming anger slowly abating. Utterly defeated! The blue eyes rimmed with wetness, and only his fierce force of will keeping angry tears from spilling over.

"House …" softly. _If you want his attention … whisper!_

The disheartened stare lifted to his, and Wilson felt as though he were being pinned in place for a moment. Then House's eyes darted away again in something reminiscent of shame; an open wound of the soul. Wilson found it difficult to witness. "It'll be okay, House. You'll handle it. _We'll_ handle it! I'll be here. I'll _always_ be here … dammit!"

Still, no answer. House turned his head away.

Silence weighed heavy. Then, Wilson, inspired, murmured: "We got the mutt!"

The beat-up head turned back quickly, eyes questioning. "What?"

"I said … we got the mutt. You told us to bring the mutt …"

The frown appeared, House flinched, and it went away again. "What mutt?"

"You don't remember a big brown dog?"

A light turned on suddenly behind the blue eyes. "I dreamed about a dog …"

"It was real."

"Was?"

"Yep … crummy, scurvy, ugly mutt … but you should see him now! He's a nice dog. I think he had a hand in saving your miserable life."

"Yeah?" Interest building.

"Um hum."

"What the fuck am I supposed to do with a dog?"

"Be buddies with him! Oh yeah … by the way … your parents are on their way here …"

"Oh, double fuck!"

oooooooooooooooooooo

Lisa Cuddy, watching from the window of her office, saw the silver pickup pull into the visitors section of the parking lot. Blue and white New York plates stood out glaringly among all the yellow Jersey ones. John and Blythe House walked together, shoulder to shoulder across the lot and came in through the wide main entrance. They stood looking around, re-acclimating themselves to the layout. It had been nearly seven years since they'd visited this part of PPTH in daylight, and many aspects had been remodeled and updated in the intervening passage of time.

Cuddy left her chair and walked out into the lobby to meet them. They were dressed casually, both in matching dress jeans and dark shirts, and Cuddy thought to herself: _How '70's!_

It had been a long time, but they recognized her right away. Neither seemed distant or prone to hold a grudge because of Gregg's misdiagnosis, in which she'd had a very large part. She smiled and greeted them with a nod, and they both returned the favor.

"Before I take you upstairs to visit your son," she began, "we should visit the cafeteria for a cold drink, and I'll prepare you a little so you won't be shocked by his injuries. He's a stubborn, proud man, and doesn't tolerate sympathy very well …"

John House shook his thick mop of gray hair and smiled wryly. "Oh God! Don't we know it! Okay, fair enough. I could stand a cold drink and a visit to the head."

Across from him, Blythe agreed. "I could stand to freshen up too," she said. "But I need to go to Gregory soon."

"We will," Cuddy told her. "I promise."

They ordered iced tea with lemon all around, and chose a corner table, out of the way of traffic.

"How's my boy?" John asked. No preliminaries; a straight, no-nonsense question. Blythe's gaze met hers also, right beside him.

"It's very serious," Cuddy told them.

They already knew that. They were looking for further developments.

She continued. "The new injury to his weak leg is going to give him no end of added problems for a long time to come. The laceration has ripped into tissue and muscle that was not already injured by the infarction, and it's added to his disability. How much, we don't know yet. Right now he's bedfast, and there is no possibility that he can attempt to bear weight without ripping the sutures. The cut is in a bad place … of course every injury of this nature is in a bad place … but especially for Dr. House."

"His hand is badly broken, and it's his dominant hand … the one in which he handles his cane. He will not be able to walk again for a long time. The entire right side of his face looks much worse than it is, and he has a black eye." Cuddy looked pointedly at John. "If you decide to tease him about it … please let me get out of the room first! I'm not sure how accurate he is at throwing things with his left hand."

They smiled. Her small joke had broken the tension of her discouraging news, and they were shored up and ready to proceed to the third floor. "The last time I saw him throw left-handed," John House muttered, "he was pretty damned accurate!"

James Wilson and Gregg House were both resigned to the arrival of House's parents when they appeared in his hospital room's doorway with Lisa Cuddy. Wilson had called down to the reception desk at noon and talked to one of the nurses. "When you see an older couple in the company of Dr. Cuddy, give me a call in Room 317, will you Brenda?"

The phone call had finally come ten minutes before.

Wilson cranked up his friend's bed to the limits of comfort, and covered his lower body with a sheet. The injured leg, cushioned on its pillow, made a large lump on the bed's surface, but at least it did not expose the thick bandages or his swollen lower leg to scrutiny. House's broken hand was mostly hidden inside a dark blue sling with a snowy white strap that fit snugly around his neck and left shoulder.

His multi-hued temple was the only obvious indication of the seriousness of his injuries, other than the "wired" look of the IVs. He leaned back against a fresh pillow with a pained and put-upon look of martyred vulnerability on his expressive face.

Had he not been so seriously hurt, Wilson might happily have slapped him silly. "House, these are your _parents_, you moron!" He hissed. "Behave yourself!"

House smiled bravely, combed away a momentary smirk, and went back to looking pained. He hoped his mother wouldn't jostle him, or the charade would be over very quickly. His morphine drip had been reduced earlier, and the first vestiges of pain had begun to lick at his nerve endings like hungry dragons. Life went on, and it didn't care who was visiting at his bedside.

Blythe paused in the doorway and stared at her son's painful-looking face. He looked back at her piteously, brows knit and eyes bleak, playing it for all it was worth. The glint in his Dad's eyes, however, told him that the charade was wasted effort on his part. He rolled his eyes.

_Prick! You've spoiled all my fun … all my life!_ He concentrated instead, on his mother's soft heart. "Hi, Mom."

She came to his side and touched his forehead with her soft hand. Leaned down and kissed his uninjured cheek tenderly. She could feel him tremble beneath her. He was putting on quite a show for his father's benefit, but she knew he was hurting. "Hello, darling ..." She was whispering again. He knew her words were for him alone, and he allowed himself to melt gratefully into her love. "You really don't feel very well, do you, dear? It seems that every time I see you, you're hurt a little more. It's not fair!"

"Mom, please. I'm fine … I mean … I'll be all right. Just got a little work to do to get things back to where they were. Please don't worry, Mom."

Blythe caressed his eyebrows with gentle fingers, blocking the others' view with her turned back. He was uncomfortable and embarrassed, but he allowed it. She was very well versed on what he could tolerate and what he could not. She ruffled his short, coarse hair the same way she had done when he was a small child, and cupped his left ear and scruffy cheek in her warm palm. He reached up with his multi-wired hand and grasped her wrist weakly.

It was his sign that he wanted her to stop with the babying, and so she did.

His Dad walked over to stand beside her. Eyebrows tilted down at the ends gave him a worried look, a family trait. House wondered if he actually was worried. "You had us scared a little, son," the old man said, and Gregg guessed that he was. There were no sarcastic remarks. No cracks about having "two legs". No mention of "chicks" or "babes" … or any crude questions on whether or not he was "getting any" …

Gregory House closed his eyes for a second, instinctively compensating for a swift twinge of pain … there and gone. It was starting.

His parents both saw their son's face lose its color and turn ashen; both turned for quick assistance from Gregg's colleagues. But they were both gone. Cuddy. Wilson. Offering privacy for family time.

Gregg looked up. "It's okay. They've reduced the morphine and I'm beginning to come down. Nothing to worry about. I need to go with it 'til I go back on my meds …"

"Son?" It was his father, and the old man was scared. John turned on his heel … that damned military "about face" … and strode into the hallway. Gregg looked after him, puzzled.

Another wave of sudden pain made him hunch. His broken hand twitched inside the sling, as though he was trying to move it far enough to press it onto his thigh. But it wouldn't move.

Wilson hurried back into the room just ahead of John House and Lisa Cuddy; went to Gregg's bed and upped the morphine drip. After a minute, Gregg House began to relax. His head pressed back against the pillow and his eyes fell closed. Wilson dumped ice chips into another plastic cup and held it to House's lips. House crunched a few of them, nodded his head, and Wilson withdrew. Stood back and watched with concern.

John and Blythe House watched James Wilson. Their son's friend was _right there! _ Wilson was always right there … never more than an arm's length away. They saw Gregg's eyes open and follow Wilson's movements as he walked back again and stood at the foot of the bed. Lisa Cuddy stood watching from the doorway, hovering, but did not step into the room.

Cuddy saw Wilson's hand place a feather touch on the instep of Gregg's swollen foot and hold it there for a moment, squeeze gently, then pull back and away and disappear deep into the pocket of his white lab coat. From the doorway, Dr. Cuddy smiled and withdrew. House already had everything he wanted and needed, standing sentinel right there at his side.

Blythe and John did not miss the significance of the touch either. Somehow they were not surprised. They were both gratified by the calming effect the touch had had upon their son.

They stayed with him, mostly in silence, for another half hour.

When they turned to leave, he opened his eyes and spoke to them. "Don't go to a hotel."

"What?" Blythe was not certain she'd heard him right. "What did you say, Gregg?"

"Please … don't go to a hotel. Stay at my place. Not … like I'm going to need it for awhile. It's fairly clean. You'll have to change the sheets. Water the plants … feed the dog and the rat and the canary …"

"Gregg? Since when do you have plants? A dog? A canary?" John House shifted his gaze to Wilson, frowning. "James, is he delirious?"

Wilson smiled enigmatically. "No … actually, he's bullshitting … riding on cloud nine. The morphine's taken his pain away again, and he's a little light headed. He has a rat. Really! But no plants. No canary. No dog … at least, not at the moment!"

Their eyebrows knitted in puzzlement, and it amused Wilson a little. When they glanced back at Gregg again, the pain had cleared from his face. The color had come back, and he was asleep.

oooooooooooooooooooo

ouse's line of vision withHous

45


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"Night Visitor"

There was a new moon hanging by its top corner off a low-lying cloud bank. There was a breeze that gently lifted the strands of her long, dark hair, but not enough to muss it up. She got out of her car, closed the door quietly and looked up at the sky. The Milky Way reminded her of a fragment of broken chalk scraped sideways across a blackboard, leaving a path of tiny particles scattered through the path that trailed behind. Ursa Major dominated the heavens directly overhead, and she gazed at it long and hard.

If she hadn't already decided to become a doctor, the lure of astronaut training might have tugged at her heartstrings. When she'd been a kid, the exotic Lieutenant Uhura had whispered enticingly into her ear. She had _almost_ listened … and followed.

Now, however, a doctor she was, and she had never regretted the choice. The work was hard, and often heartbreaking, but it had its compensations. Today had been a difficult one, and had extended into a late night. She wasn't complaining. A few things had turned out a lot better than she'd expected.

Dr. Gregory House, subordinate, verbal sparring partner, brilliant diagnostician and long-respected colleague, was on the mend. She was happy about that. It would have hurt so badly to have lost him after all the struggles he'd faced so bravely for so many years.

A long-time family feud she had known about, but never witnessed first-hand, seemed on the cusp of being given a well-deserved "time-out" during the interval that House's parents were in town. He'd even offered them his apartment … and they'd accepted.

She'd witnessed something else today that she had not even considered before, but now that she thought about it, she wondered where her head had been all these years for not having noticed it before. The discovery of something very nice had pleased her more than she might have imagined.

And she suddenly realized that she had a dog staying at her house. A real dog!

Lisa Cuddy looked around at the quiet solitude of night and the peaceful suburban neighborhood, and suddenly felt very good about herself and her place in the world. She was bone tired, and the hour was late. She took a deep breath and expelled it explosively, turned away from the fancy black Pontiac Torrent and walked slowly up the sidewalk toward her house.

She gasped, startled. Someone sat stretched out in one of the chairs on her front lawn. A soft voice chuckled gently. She expelled the breath in a whoosh and found herself smiling. "Aren't you lost?"

"No, not really. I stopped by to let you know that House is sleeping comfortably … and you have a handsome stranger poking around in your back yard. I didn't want you to see him out there and get scared out of your wits." James Wilson returned the smile and rose tiredly to his feet. "His name's 'Baxter'."

"Baxter," she repeated dumbly. "There really is a dog! You and Foreman weren't kidding before!" Why did that concept seem so foreign to her when so many other revelations today had settled into her brain without a hitch.

"Uh uh. Not kidding this time. Really is a dog! Pretty animal. A little skittish, but quite friendly if you speak softly to him."

"Kinda like House, huh?" Lisa said caustically. "Yeah … right!"

"I don't think House believes me," Wilson continued, "and I don't think he even remembers ordering Foreman and me to make sure to pick him up. Should be interesting when he finds out it's true. Since you're the only staff member who even _has_ a fenced-in back yard … I hope you don't mind keeping him until House decides what he wants to do with him."

She grinned. Wilson looked so worried. Wilson looked worried a lot, and she certainly understood the basis for those worries. She didn't want to be the one to cause him more.

"Baxter, huh? Well, okay, he can crash here awhile. Housebroken?"

"Uhh … I have no idea. Thanks." Wilson started down across her lawn on his way back to the curb.

"Where's your car?" She asked.

"A block down," he said. "The street was a little crowded with parked cars when Bax and I first got here. Most of them have left, or put their cars in their garages. Don't worry … it's not that far to walk. I'll see you in the morning. Goodnight, Lisa."

"Goodnight, Jim," she replied and stood looking after him as he disappeared down the block.

She unlocked her door, turned on the light and hung her large handbag on its regular hook in the hallway.

Let's go see this … dog!

oooooooooooooooooooo

John House pulled the big Dodge up to the curb outside their son's ordinary looking town house. He and Blythe sat tight for a moment, glancing around the ordinary looking neighborhood. Gregg's front stoop opened right onto the sidewalk without benefit of porch or accouterments or front yard. There were two cement steps up to the front door, and another half-step up to get inside. He did not even have the benefit of a railing or a banister to aid him in getting up and down the steps.

"He's hurting his leg every time he goes in or out," Blythe complained under her breath. "At least he got to ride up in an elevator at the last apartment. Why does he have to punish himself so? This place is going to be terrible for him if he has to be confined to a wheelchair."

"Now Blythe … dammit … your son is a whole other breed of cat!" John grumbled. "He never did take the easy road, sad to say, and he's not about to start now."

"_My_ son? All of a sudden he's _my_ son?" She did not hear any part of his statement except the "your son" part.

John laughed out loud. "That's what I said, woman. The airhead part of him is yours! When he does dumb stuff like this, he's _all_ yours! The idiot part of him that goes out and buys a crotch rocket and then parks it a 'handicap' parking space is just _wrong_! The brilliant, famous doctor part with a mind like a steel trap is mine!"

"John, there you go again … belittling him when you know he's in so much pain most of the time … that nasty motorcycle is a distraction for him."

"Whoa there, little lady! Company halt … about face … 'ten hut …parade rest! I am _not_ belittling my son! I was making an observation, and you know as well as I do that he has a damn penchant for putting himself into situations that cause him pain. If he had only let them amputate his leg back when he was so deathly sick … and then fit him with a prosthesis, he could be so close to normal by now, that you'd never guess there was anything wrong. He wouldn't be in pain, wouldn't be crippled, probably wouldn't be using a 'handicapped' parking space to park a freakin' motorcycle … and he wouldn't be limping around on a cane!"

"That's not fair!"

"What's not fair about it? It's true. Gregg managed to inherit all the damned House- stubbornness DNA that got handed down from the dawn of time. Only thing is, he's taken it all to a new level. Ever hear the old saw about biting off your nose to spite your face? Well, _our_ son has it in spades! He's turned it into an art form, and I don't see him slacking off anytime soon."

Blythe stared at her husband, angered by his harsh words, even though he'd done what he could to insert a humorous slant into it. She knew a lot of what he'd said was true, but his rigid attitude stemmed directly from his long-time military attitude, and to her, that was unacceptable. "John, I understand what you're telling me … 'suck it up' and all that gobbledygook … but I know there's more to it than that. He has some deep-seated fear of losing his leg that we don't even know about, and I'm not so certain that _he_ does!

"When Stacy first suggested that he allow them to do the amputation, we all saw his face turn white as a sheet at the mention of it. I've never seen him so frightened of anything before in his life. If she'd have insisted they go through with it after they put him into the coma, I'm afraid I would have ripped her face off right then and there!"

John stared at his wife, a bit startled. "You never told me that."

"No … well … I never told a lot of people a lot of things. He's my son, and I love him beyond all reason. As an adult, he has every right to choose his own destiny. He chose to keep his leg, and I respect that. It made him a cripple, and I still love him beyond all reason! To me, he's perfect just the way he is. And he knows I feel that way, because I told him." Blythe felt herself beginning to cry, in spite of all her efforts not to.

Blackjack House backed down from every vestige of military bearing at that moment. He slid across the center console and put a burly arm around his wife's bent shoulders. "I'm sorry, Blythe. I guess you think I'm an insensitive bastard sometimes."

"No," she sighed. "Not really. I never thought that. I know how difficult it was for you to see Gregg after they removed all that dead muscle … and how hard it was for you to see him again today, even more hurt than before. But he's strong, John. Strong and intelligent and very determined. Even though it pisses him off most of the time, I think he realizes that the reason the two of you can't get along for five minutes, is because you are so _damn_ much alike! And that pisses him off even more! The more he tries to be _not_ like you, the more like you he gets. Ironic, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess." He sat back and looked at her, smiled a tad. "You know what?"

"What?"

"I love you, woman."

"I know …"

"Let's go inside and take a look at this dump of his. Actually, I'm surprised he offered to let us stay here. Let's go in and see if he's got anything to eat in there besides peanut butter and beer …"

"Okay. He said we'd need to change the bed linens. I'm so glad he has Jimmy right there for him. I wonder how long he'll be in the hospital this time …"

"I don't know, dear. He's so goddamned skinny …"

oooooooooooooooooooo

Midnight:

James Wilson stood in the doorway of the dim hospital room, gazing at the still figure stretched out on the bed. Across the room, a TV mounted high on the wall threw a flickering light outward. The sound was muted. "House?" He called softly. "You awake?"

Gregg's head turned on the pillow and squinted to the right where his friend stood with his hands in his trouser pockets. "Wilson? What the hell are you doing back here?" The cuts on House's face didn't pull quite so much now, and it was easier for him to take in the scope of things going on around him. The light from the television cast an eerie glow across his sunken cheeks.

"I dropped Baxter off at Cuddy's place, and I wasn't tired enough to go home. I thought I'd stop by and check on you."

"Checking up on the cripple again, huh?" Gregg's voice had an edge to it; perhaps a bit annoyed at being babysat.

Wilson shrugged a little and crossed the floor to the bed in a few easy steps. "Yeah … whatever floats your boat. Would you rather I stayed away? I figured you wouldn't be asleep, and infomercials are always entertaining this time of night …"

As he spoke, Wilson checked the monitors, the IV lines, the pulse ox and the Foley. Everything looked okay. The BP and respiratory rate were up a tad and he touched the backs of his fingers to House's cheek. "Pain?"

"Some. Goes with the territory. Thought you knew that. And if you want to prowl around this place half the night, that's your prerogative. About the most you'll get to do is hang around and watch me sleep."

"… and stare at the TV."

"Yeah, that too. You took the mutt to Cuddy's?"

Wilson was surprised that his friend was even interested enough to ask. "Yeah. She says he can crash there until you decide what you want to do about him."

House frowned; glowered up into Wilson's face. "Why would I want to do anything about him? I don't want a damn dog. Don't have time for one … or space. What's he gonna do … hook up to my freakin' wheelchair and pull me around town? 'Awww … look at the cripple and his helper dog!' Poor me!"

"Oh, you're in a good mood tonight, aren't you?" Wilson said calmly. This was the House he knew; the House he was used to, even if it wasn't quite the House he loved like a brother.

"I feel like I've been pulled through a knothole backwards …"

"I'm not surprised. You're going to hurt for awhile …"

"Like that's a brand new experience for me. Jesus, Wilson! Where you been for the past seven years?"

"Now you're whining. I like you better when you're pissed off."

"I _am_ pissed off!"

"I would never have guessed." He pulled the visitor's chair up to the bedside, sat down and took House's broken hand carefully between both of his own while House continued to glower. "Give me a number on the pain scale for this!" He said. He ran experienced fingers up House's forearm to the elbow, checking for heat and swelling. "Skin feel tight? Any prickling sensation? Knuckles thumping? Come on, House. You may as well tell me. If you don't, I'll call one of the nurses …"

"You wouldn't!" House drew his hand away just as carefully as Wilson had picked it up. It was out of the sling again and he'd started to cradle it gingerly in the bend of his opposite elbow.

"Watch me!" Wilson made to get out of the chair and aim in the direction of the telephone.

"Jesus! You are a bothersome son of a bitch!"

"Yeah, I know. I learned the knack from this big jerk that I have to deal with every day of my damned life. Now give me a number!"

"Six, dammit! It hurts, but if an infection was starting, I'd know it."

Wilson nodded and sat down again. "That's better. I have no doubt it hurts like hell, and I'm sorry, okay? Tell me about your leg."

A glare: he was still suspicious of being patronized. Deathly afraid of it … even from his best friend. "The usual … times two."

"I can massage the adductors if you like … and the hamstrings … might help with your pain a little."

"You looking to get into my pants, Jimmy?"

Wilson rolled his eyes. "Oh sure! Here in the hospital … in the dead of night. Guy-porn in the glare of late-night TV!" The sarcasm was total and blatant.

House grinned smugly; flinched away from another stab of pain. "Fuck!" He grunted as it let go again, and expelled a breath through puffed cheeks. "Was there a yes-or-no answer in there somewhere?"

"Would you like me to help you try to get rid of some of your pain? Or not?"

"Yeah. Hurts like hell …"

"I know it does." The deep brown eyes softened.

Wilson removed the pillow from beneath House's bandaged leg and extended his hands with extreme care, palms upward, in the place where the pillow had been. Gently he massaged the cramped adductors and hamstrings, working from the center outward. The comparison between muscle structures of both his friend's legs was striking now. Even with the new bandages in place, he could see the discrepancy above and below the right knee in the flickering light. He stared sadly. The hollow in the flesh where the large quadriceps muscle had been stood out like a moon crater, with only the swelling from the most recent injury rounding the edges.

House's head pressed hard into the pillow, eyes clenched shut, half in pain, half in tortured relief. He knew James was staring at the leg and accepted it as payment for the massage. Or maybe he simply didn't give a shit. He couldn't decide.

Wilson backed off the pressure and eased out from under, returned the pillow to its place beneath House's knee. "Any better?"

House's left fist was still clenched at his side. Consciously he released it, relaxed, and opened his eyes. "Oh yeah …" He couldn't go on.

"You're welcome."

Wilson brushed his hand affectionately across House's shoulder before backing off and returning to the chair. "I talked to your folks just before they left to go to your place. They were surprised you suggested they stay there. You're probably going to find your pantry fully stocked with groceries and supplies when you get discharged and go home. I'm telling you now, in case you get back there and decide to go off on them for interfering …"

"Yeah … well … they won't get any argument from me for bringing in the food. But if I go home and find everything polished to a high sheen that hurts my eyes, then you'll hear me all the way to Hoboken!"

oooooooooooooooooooo

12:30 A. M.

The night was too warm for a sweater, so she sat on the top step of her back porch in just the sleeveless sun dress she had worn to work. She'd kicked her shoes off in the kitchen awhile ago and padded around in stocking feet while digging around in the cupboard for something salty. She finally settled on a bag of stale Doritos and pulled off the snap clothes pin she used to seal the bag.

A tall green bottle of Heinekin clinked against a line of others just like it on the top shelf of the fridge. She snicked off the top and tossed it in the trash, then picked up the Doritos and the beer and pushed open the screen door.

"You know, if you'd move over a little, there'd be room for both of us down here," she said softly, taking her first pull from the Heinekin.

The soft body beside her looked pointedly at the bottle of beer and then transferred his interest to the bag of corn chips in her lap. He moved a few inches to his right and resettled himself with a quiet grunt. His attention never wavered from the chip bag.

Lisa reached in for a fistful of the chips and tossed one into her mouth; crunched on it. Placed a small pile on the porch floor between herself and the dog, and it disappeared in a flash of canines and a pink tongue. "You like those, huh?"

The soft brown eyes looked at her with avid interest. His attention snapped between her hand and the bag like a camera in stop-motion.

_I'll take more of those … if you're giving them away …_

Cuddy laughed softly. "Too much people-food isn't good for dogs," she said. "Didn't your Mama teach you anything?"

_I dunno what a "mama" is …but can't I have some more of those? Huh? Huh?_

Cuddy took another swig on the beer, then dug back into the chip bag. She munched on one and placed the second pile in the same spot on the porch floor.

_Slurrp … Crunch-crunch … Thanks! More?_

His ears were working back and forth eagerly. He licked his chops and extended a bewhiskered muzzle toward the bag she'd already begun to roll up.

_Awww … Jeeez!_

He reminded her a little of Gregory House when the goody bag was empty, and she laughed to herself at that thought.

"You don't need anymore, Bax. So stick your bristly face over in the other direction. Boy! You are some greedy little grizzly bear, aren't you? You and House should get along just fine … that is after someone convinces him he wants you. The two of you look a little alike … you know? Of course his eyes are blue … and yours are … what? Black? Brown? But you do have a face full of white whiskers. Some of his are white too … and getting whiter all the time."

She sighed, smiling slightly. She was rambling on in idle fashion, giving voice to random thoughts she'd been burying lately. Gregg was looking older and more pained as the years went by. She wondered vaguely what might be in store for him now. "He's becoming so … fragile …"

_Are you talking to me? Who are you talking about? Why'd you put the food away?_

Baxter shoved his cold wet nose under the crook of her elbow and nudged upward, but she lifted her arm higher than he could reach, and the bag with it. He looked away, blinking, obviously disappointed.

"He really could use a friend to talk to … bitch at … someone like you, who wouldn't talk back to him … would accept him for who he is and love him unconditionally without trying to change him. Wilson is good at that … he has something deep inside that absorbs all House's meanness and then chews it up and spits it out. Wilson throws all of House's sarcastic remarks right back in his face, but he doesn't try to change him. But Wilson has a job to do and can't be with him every minute.

"You don't have a job though, do you, Bax? You could be at his side twenty-four hours a day. Yeah, House could really use someone like you. Do you think you could convince him you're indispensable? Dr. Wilson thinks you could. He told me!

"I feel a little sad for Dr. Wilson sometimes. He tries so hard. It's a difficult job being Gregory House's best friend. Thankless. House tries to push him away just as he pushes everyone else away. House doesn't trust people anymore. Stacy ruined that for him, I think. He was very much in love with her once. Now he can't love anyone. Well … guess I shouldn't say 'anyone' … not after what I saw today. Maybe nothing will ever come of it … I don't know. It would be wonderful for both of them if it did …

"Oh shut up, Lisa! You're babbling! Right, Bax?"

_Who? Me? Oh yeah, I can be everybody's buddy … I can I can I can! Want me to bark? I can. Want me to whine? Look cute or pathetic? I can do that too. Want me to lick your face? Oh … I can! And I can listen and listen and listen to anything you want to say …_

Baxter's eyes were bright, glistening like dark coals in the quiet night. His ears flicked back and forth and his head tilted from side to side. His tongue lolled and he looked as though he was hanging on her every word and forming thoughts of his own.

Lisa put her arm lightly across Baxter's shoulders and sat there with him on the top step of her back porch, as though they were dear friends catching up on old times.

Presently she upturned the green Heinekin bottle to let the last few drops spill out on the ground.

They went inside together, and when Lisa Cuddy went to bed at last, Baxter laid down with a contented grunt, right beside her bed.

oooooooooooooooooooo

Gregg's shower had "handicap" support bars built into it. The bathtub had an EZ-Access door. His bathroom was clean and clear of all obstructions, but when Blythe stood beneath the hot water of the huge shower head, she wept silently at all the room's implications. All the special installations were subtle. No one who visited this bathroom for a few minutes would realize, on the surface, that the room was designed to accommodate someone who had full use of only one leg.

To Blythe, however, it blared "CRIPPLE!"

She and John had taken the fifty-cent tour of the apartment when they'd dropped their luggage inside the front door. It was Spartan in décor; Earth tones and heavy leather and distinctly male accoutrements. Decorated with a flair for the artistic element, and crammed with books of all descriptions, it spoke of organized chaos and a flair for the dramatic.

The baby grand in the corner was polished to a high sheen and meticulously maintained.

It was obviously the focal point of the room, and announced proudly that Gregory House was still much more than a cripple!

There were a few small stacks of sheet music scattered about, but they both knew Gregg played mostly by ear, and had a fondness for adding his own embellishments to any piece of music that happened to fall beneath his talented fingers. His piano style was playfully distinctive and soothing to the ear. Or raucous and lively as the artist at the keyboard!

Even now, Blythe could hear him and see him in her mind, although she hadn't heard him play in years … and the image comforted her. He was so talented. So accomplished. So beautiful.

So tortured.

The compact kitchen crammed a lot of state-of-the-art equipment into a relatively small space. The one thing they noticed right away, and commented upon, was the fact that almost everything was installed within arms reach of the butcher-block table in the center of the room. The small table by the window had seats for two; four if you pulled it away from the wall a tad.

On the rare occasions when Gregg chose to prepare a meal, he could reach almost everything he needed by moving only a few steps in either direction. When they came across a wheeled stool pushed discreetly beneath the counter in one corner, they realized he didn't even have to do that.

A small utility room off the kitchen held a stacked washer and dryer, a folding table and a deep mop sink. The place wasn't big, but it was certainly well-contained.

The only mess they found was in the bedroom. Clothing was piled haphazardly on every surface. Even atop the TV, and a loose shirtsleeve hung down across the screen. The bed was in wild disarray, blankets and sheets twisted; pillows many and scattered. There were as many at the foot of the bed as there were at the head. Blythe and John looked at each other sadly. The two huge goose-down pillows at the foot of the bed were there, obviously, to cushion his leg. In that instant, his disability slammed back to rock them both and remove any illusions of normality they might have hoped for.

In the cluttered closet, a pair of tall aluminum crutches hung readily accessible on a hook on the back of the open door. Just in case.

John and Blythe did the "military" thing. They policed the area. In a half hour, the dirty clothing had been placed in a hamper and carted to the utility room. The bed had been made up with fresh sheets they found on the closet shelf, and a half dozen pairs of gaudy running shoes were placed neatly on the closet floor. They took care not to touch any of Gregg's personal items. They only cleaned up the mess.

Before they snapped off the bedside light, John turned to his wife and said to her softly: "If I had one wish that I knew would be granted …"

"What, dear?"

"I'd ask that he be healthy again …"

oooooooooooooooooooo

59


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"Prowlers in the 'Hood"

Thursday night … Midnight-ish …

Jim Wilson had never in his life been a rule breaker … a nose thumber … a practical joker. It was simply not in his nature, unless the joke was on, or in cahoots with, House. But tonight he was going to "learn the ropes," so-to-speak!

Tonight the Wonder Boy Oncologist was going to learn how to become a thief of sneakery. Literally! And he was actually in the company of one of the best. Eric Foreman stood near his left shoulder looking skeptically indulgent, but quite willing to share a few of the tricks he had learned as a teenage thug from the 'hood. (Show the dumb white boy how it was done, and all that.) It was very late and the two of them were about to go on a mission.

("You turn off your cell phone yet?" "….. Uh … yeah …")

It was a loong story!

Jim had taken the day off from his normal duties and remained with House off and on throughout the day, just as he had remained with him overnight last night. He'd already known he would be with him. Wild horses couldn't have kept him away. Determinedly, he'd catnapped in the visitor's chair, keeping an eye and an ear tuned to House's ability to sleep, and soon started to feel as though his neck was growing out his arm pit.

However, those were the dues one paid for the privilege of close friendship; dues laid down gladly and willingly, and chalked up to the fortunes of life!

John and Blythe House had been with Gregg most of the day also, and Wilson was happily surprised that his friend was actually taking the time to speak to his father in a vaguely civilized (for him) manner. Wilson did believe, however, that if House had not been confined to a sickbed and unable to escape John's presence, such civility would probably have been the furthest thing from his mind. He was a captive audience of "one", and had to make the best of it if he expected his mother to remain there too. House's parents were worried sick about their son, and had expressed a desire to remain near him overnight also. Only Wilson's kind insistence that they go back to the apartment and get some rest had deterred them from digging in. He assured them he would be there.

Thursday, four days after the accident, House's doctors had authorized the final removal of the morphine IV. The drip had been diminished considerably, beginning the day before while his pain level escalated gradually back up the scale. They'd also relieved him of the Foley and the other IVs. Wilson knew that House would rather die than be caught giving in to pain, and so he would stop by House's room every couple of hours, even as he sneaked off from time to time to consult on an entirely different matter with Eric Foreman.

Wilson managed to invent a variety of ways to get rid of John and Blythe long enough to allow his friend to gather himself for the next round of the macho charade. Among the excuses were bandage changing, sponge baths, shots in the butt, a trip to X-Ray to check the broken hand, and a few difficult wheelchair excursions to the bathroom. Some of these intrusions were even legitimate. But they all had one thing in common: they spared House's parents, for a time, from seeing their son try to deny the increase in pain. House would allow Wilson to see him falling apart, but no one else.

Finally, by late Thursday evening, after the supper hour, and after John and Blythe had reluctantly left for the night, Gregg had resumed his normal Vicodin intake and the morphine IV had been detached and removed from the room. The worst was over.

Maybe …

Wilson knew he had to make an excuse to Gregg and manage to get out of the hospital by 9:00 p.m. It was not going to be easy. Wilson hated to leave, but it was necessary. House was frustrated, angry, stiff and sore from the extended inactivity, and becoming extremely vocal about it. Wilson absorbed the whining and the bitching and the grumbling and the empty threats, and took a page from the "Manual According to Col. John House, USMC, Retired:"

_Suck it up!_

When Wilson figured he'd finally had enough, he walked around the bed, poured House a glass of cold water and held it to his lips while he drank.

Sated, House resumed his bitching. Wilson stood with hands on hips for a moment, counting to ten under his breath. Finally, he bent down to his friend's eye level, reached out with his left hand and covered House's mouth gently with his palm.

"Shut. _Up!_"

Sparks flew like javelins from the fierce blue eyes just above the place where Wilson grasped a handful of silver-threaded scruff. "Do I have your attention?"

House's chin dipped fractionally, the best he could manage under the circumstances. The twin pools of blue shifted from outrage to pitiful in a heartbeat.

Wilson let go and stepped back. His hands returned to his hips. "I have some things I need to take care of in town tonight, so I have to leave in an hour or so. I'm not going to stay with you tonight, so I need to get your numbers … now!"

House turned those puppy dog eyes dolefully upward and pinned Wilson to the wall with them. There was an unvoiced interrogative hanging in the air.

_God, he's good at that!_ Wilson thought.

"Well? Numbers, please!" Refusing to take the bait.

Wilson reached down to the spot where House's broken hand lay cradled gingerly in the crook of his opposite elbow. He slid his fingers gently beneath House's injured hand and lifted it to enfold it between his own. The splint was cumbersome, unwieldy and very awkward. No wonder it hurt him! The stitched laceration on the thick part of his palm must be driving him crazy.

"Seven," House replied, his voice barely vocal, "and headed for number eight." His gaze lay riveted on Wilson's two warm hands against his hurt one.

Wilson's eyes narrowed in sympathy before he could school his face not to react in that manner. "I'm sorry. When did you last take your meds?"

"An hour ago. It's too soon. I'll be fine." The usual response was right there when he caught someone doing more than the minimum amount of caring. His nose wrinkled painfully, eyes closing, taking a breath and holding it.

"Really wish I could do something for you …" Wilson leaned down and blew a soft, warm breath beneath the padding upon which the splint lay holding the fractured bones in place.

Distracted for a moment, House raised his eyes to Wilson's, expelled the breath he'd been holding. "Thanks. Do that again! That actually helps …"

Wilson exhaled another breath. Longer. Warmer.

"Really?"

"Yeah." There was an awkward silence between them for a moment. "You _are_ doing something for me …"

Wilson frowned questioningly. _What?_

"You're here."

"Only for another forty five minutes …" Wilson grinned.

"You got a hot date?" Still pressing for answers.

"Something like that." Wilson refused to be baited. "Tell me about your leg."

"Just peachy!" Prying questions still unanswered, House was turning pissy again.

Wilson ignored him. "Yep. I can see that. Sore?"

"Tolerable. Haven't tried to move it. My ass hurts and I'm soon going to have to go to the head. Ask me after that!"

"I could get them to hook up the Foley again …"

"In your dreams!"

"Then it's two big-boy orderlies … or the wheelchair and _one_ big-boy orderly. Take your choice! You can't do it alone, and you know it."

"Shit!"

"House … you knew this was how it was gonna be …" Wilson replaced the broken hand carefully into House's lap.

House shifted it back to the crook of his opposite elbow where it had been cradled before. "Yeah, Jimmy … but now that the 'gonna be' is here, it doesn't make it any easier."

Wilson clammed up. There was no answer to that one. He stood there feeling pole-axed, hands dangling helplessly at his sides. His face was blank, knees weak; balancing his entire body weight on one leg in much the same manner he'd seen House do it for years.

He felt a sudden impulse to take his friend in his arms and just hold him, allow him to hide his face in the depths of the voluminous lab coat and shut out the rest of the world.

That was the one thing that he could not do. Not only would House be mortified beyond all reason, but Wilson's embrace would hurt more than comfort.

And so Wilson did nothing.

Lisa Cuddy stopped by to check up on her errant "Bobbsey Twins" just as Wilson was conjuring up a reasonable excuse to get out of there. He had never been so glad to see someone in his whole life. He gave their boss a complete rundown on House's condition and pain levels while House sat listening, bristling at the fact that he was being discussed as though he were not even in the room.

After that, Wilson had the perfect excuse to get away and go meet up with Foreman. Cuddy was there to push the boulder up the hill awhile.

Behind him as he exited into the corridor, he could hear House bitching at the tops of his lungs: "Goddammit, Cuddy … get me some help! I need to go pee!"

Wilson cringed in empathy, but kept going.

Foreman met him in the parking lot. He was standing right next to the front fender of Cuddy's new Pontiac Torrent. "I take it she's still inside, right?" Eric asked unnecessarily.

Wilson inclined his head. "Yeah. She's … with House … if you can believe it."

"Get outa _town!_" Foreman grinned. "Guess we're good to go then, right?"

"Uh huh. Good to go." Wilson was having second thoughts about their little excursion, but it was too late to back out now. He did not intend to look like a wuss in Foreman's dark, piercing eyes. "I'm ready whenever you are."

"My car's in the next row over," Foreman told him. The young neurologist owned a dark grey Explorer, coincidentally a car amply suited for the night! "I put the back seats down. Lots of room back there. Hope he doesn't get car sick."

Wilson smiled a little. "He was okay in my car coming back from the vet's the other day, so I don't think we'll have a problem."

"Good. Cleaning dog puke out of the back of this heap ain't high on my list of priorities. I'd probably trade it in first!"

"Eww!" Wilson said, then laughed. They could pull this off!

They rode in amiable silence. Foreman's car radio was tuned low to an NPR station, and they were playing progressive jazz. House would have loved it! If House was here, the music would be blaring, not discreetly muted. He would also relish the prospect of sneaking around at night. But House was not in a position to do much sneaking around anymore. Purposely or otherwise!

Both men were a little wired. They could feel the electricity in each other. Eric had changed his clothes after work, and now sat dark and mysterious behind the steering wheel, wearing black sneakers, black jeans and a black tee-shirt. He would be literally invisible if he kept his mouth shut and held his eye lids at half-mast. Jim Wilson, a little less so!

Across from Foreman, Wilson was similarly attired. His necktie was a fancy pastel blue one, but after he'd taken it off and stashed it in the lab coat pocket, then removed the lab coat itself and tossed it in the back, his shoes and pants were also black, and his work shirt was Navy blue.

The night was dark and Cuddy's place was not beneath a street light. She had left a light burning in her living room window, but of course her Pontiac was not in the driveway, and the new moon in the night sky afforded little by way of illumination. Foreman said he'd put his penlight in his back pocket, but that would be like having a single match flame in the middle of an airplane hangar.

Foreman pulled in against the curb and shut off the engine. "Now what do you want to do?" He asked. "Where are we going? I was never here before."

Wilson shrugged. "I dunno. In the back yard, I guess … you tell me! You were the delinquent! Besides, you know what Bax looks like. You saw him at the culvert the same as I did."

Foreman wrinkled his nose in exasperation, and on his serious face it looked clownish. "The mutt I saw at the culvert looked like a dirty floor mop! And I was _never_ a delinquent!" He growled. "I got into _one_ scrape with the law when I was a kid!"

Wilson laughed again. "This morning you thought you were Al Capone!"

"This morning I was still half asleep! Well, come on … we gonna do this or not?"

Wilson nodded. "Let's roll!"

That remark got him a look of exaggerated disbelief and a snarky throat clearing.

They got out of the car and closed the doors quietly. Anyone witnessing their movements might have suspected instantly that they were up to something. Fortunately the quiet neighborhood lived up to its reputation. Nothing moved. Not even a breeze was stirring. The new moon plastered a silly grin on the face of the night sky, and all around it, star-studded confetti littered the heavens.

Wilson and Foreman tiptoed … _tiptoed! _… across the manicured lawn and around the corner of Cuddy's neat little bungalow, sneaking along like Elmer Fudd stalking Bugs Bunny, in the direction of the fenced-in back yard.

They might have been okay had not Wilson tripped over a length of spouting that ran down the corner of the house and extended a short distance onto the grass. His shoe sole slamming against the hollow metal cylinder produced a loud "BONK!" that echoed in the night and resulted in a flurry of wild barking from a very short distance ahead.

"Oh shit!"

"Good shot, Honky!"

They both expressed their ill-contained laughter at the same moment, and a light blinked on in the house next door.

Quickly, they ducked down behind the fence like gophers into their burrows and froze. Baxter's noisy machine-gun barking from beyond the fence escalated and accelerated. The screen door on the other house popped open and a bedraggled man poked his face into the halo of illumination from his porch light. "What the hell's going on out here?"

Baxter barked louder, dividing his attention between the angry neighbor and the exact spot where Foreman and Wilson crouched on their haunches, stifling helpless laughter and hunched together like fugitives.

The neighbor craned his neck to see what was going on, but thought better of actually stepping outside. Instead, he took the option of acting like any other normal suburban male roused from sleep. "Shut-the-fuck-up-you-mangy-mongrel-before-I-go-get-my-gawdamn-shotgun!"

The screen door slammed back into place and the light blinked out.

Baxter had heard similar words before, but knew these were all smoke and no fire. He was no longer frightened; only vindicated. He shut up, sat down, licked his chops and continued to stare at the section of fence behind which Wilson and Foreman squatted in the grass, both giggling like wayward school kids.

After a few minutes of straining to catch their breath, Foreman held open the fence gate and Wilson called the dog. "C'mon, Bax! C'mon boy! Let's go meet your daddy!"

Foreman snickered and closed the gate after Baxter ran up to Wilson, whimpering and beside himself. The whirling, tail-wagging excitement when Wilson laid a hand on the dog's back threw James wildly off balance until he landed flat on his ass with his arm up in the air, trying to avoid a long pink tongue that larruped his face with joyous doggie love. Foreman stood nearby with a look of utter disgust on his face and his head tilted comically.

"Is this prancing idiot the same dog that cringed in that culvert with its teeth bared?" Foreman couldn't believe his eyes.

Wilson laughed like a loon and pushed himself to his feet while Baxter continued to whine and dance excitedly at his heels. "Bax! Take it easy!" The dog backed off a little, but continued to squirm in the passion of adoration. He sat down, tail dragging furiously across the grass, and licked his chops, never taking his eyes off Wilson.

Wilson grinned. "Yeah … this is him. Cool, isn't he?"

"Somebody fed him Mexican jumping beans," Foreman observed stiffly. "Or else he's got St. Vitas Dance!"

"This is exactly the reason why we're taking Baxter to see House tonight. If this cool mutt doesn't get on his good side, then nothing will. How the hell can he possibly resist him? The LaValle cops said this dog was guarding House with his life, and wouldn't let anyone come near him. They had to lure him away with food, and practically hogtie him to get him out of there. You can't refuse somebody who single-handedly saves your life!"

Foreman looked skeptical as they walked back along the side of Cuddy's house. "This is House we're talking about! He wouldn't piss on his own father if he was on fire!"

"That may be … changing …" Wilson said slowly, but didn't comment further.

When Eric opened the SUV's tail gate so they could lift the dog inside the Explorer, Baxter took matters into his own "paws." He leapt effortlessly inside, sat down and stared out at the two men radiating smugness, tail wagging furiously.

Very "Hous-ish!"

Both men laughed and shook their heads. Foreman reached out a tentative hand so the dog could sniff at it. Baxter did so shyly and took a moment to explore the contours of the long, dark fingers. Then he did a very "Baxter" thing: He swiped his long pink tongue across Eric's skin, and then sneezed a thin spray of doggie snot all over his palm.

Foreman looked at his hand unhappily. "Yuk!" He then scratched behind the silky ears, effectively wiping the wetness off his fingers and back on the dog. "Yep, you and House oughta get along just fine. You both have the same kinda manners!"

When they made the right turn out of the development, a big Pontiac Torrent made the turn in the opposite direction. The street light shining through its window as it passed, easily identified its driver. They'd got away from there in the nick of time. Obviously, she hadn't recognized them. House must be asleep or she would never have left.

Heaven only knew what Cuddy would think when she got home and found Baxter missing … and maybe an angry neighbor sitting up with a shotgun …

Foreman and Wilson thought the same thought at the same moment and laughed all the way back to the hospital, accompanied by joyous yaps from the back deck.

oooooooooooooooooooo

12:30 a.m. at 221B:

Blythe House rolled slowly onto her side until she butted up against her husband's strong shoulder. "John? Are you awake? I can't sleep."

"I can't either." His eyes glittered in the dim glow from the night light by the bed. He rolled over and reached up to touch her face. "Want a glass of warm milk? I'll make you one if you'd like. I keep worrying about Gregg, and I don't understand why. Maybe it's because he looks so frail and sick. It really bothers me."

She touched his hair tenderly. He was such a growly bear of a man, but a kind and tender one too. She'd always known that. He had always reminded her of "G. I. Joe," but with a deeply hidden heart that you had to look for carefully if you wanted to find it.

"Does he really, dear? Worry you? You've never talked about it very much, and sometimes I wondered if you cared. It's difficult for you to have a crippled son, isn't it? He _is_ frail and sick and hurt. He hates it. I think he hates even more, looking so ill and vulnerable in your eyes."

"I've always cared, Blythe. Gregg is my _son!_ I'd give anything … _anything_ … to have him strong and healthy again. I'd give anything to have him love me … but he doesn't!"

She embraced him then, almost at a loss for words at what she was hearing from her husband. John House was letting the truth … _his truth_ … speak out at last. "Oh, he does love you, dear. He does! But it's like the two of you live on opposite sides of a glass wall. You can see each other, but you can't touch. One of you needs to break down the glass wall."

"Tell me how …"

They didn't have an answer for that one yet.

Ten minutes later they were both dressed and in the kitchen. John put the coffee pot on. They'd both decided against the warm milk idea. Blythe stood at the butcher block table peeling a banana and watching her husband. Gregg wasn't the only one hurting. However, this was not her battle. The two of them had to find their own way to slowly reconnect as father and son. She couldn't help, and she was a little sad about that.

They'd stopped for groceries on their way back from the hospital, and their son's larder was well stocked. The freezer was full of fresh meats and easy-cook meals. Cupboards were filled to overflowing with canned goods and the pastas Gregg loved.

Steve the rat had eaten like a king the past few days, and he languished in his cage like a spoiled, well-fed monarch. His presence had disturbed Blythe at first, but the ugly thing was cute in a perverse kind of way, and actually, he fit in with Gregg's odd sense of humor. When John had first laid eyes on the large rodent, he'd stood with hands on hips and just … laughed. Belly laughed like a silly old fool! Blythe didn't ask, but thought that it might be a good thing …

Gregg's candy and cookie jars were full to their brims, and bottles of juices and sodas lined the shelves over the counter where Gregg kept the rat cage. A case of Coors Light was shoved under the little table in the utility room, and in the corner opposite the washer and dryer, bottles of scotch, vodka, rum and other potent potables stood at attention in full battle dress.

At two o'clock in the morning, they finished the pot of coffee and washed the dishes after indulging in bacon and eggs and toast. They were strangely quiet, but both were thinking the same thing.

"We need to go to him," Blythe said, finally. "We'll both feel better about it."

"Will they let us in?"

"He's a prominent physician. He's very ill. We're his parents. How can they refuse?"

"I'll go start the truck!"

oooooooooooooooooooo

Lisa Cuddy arrived home and parked her car in the driveway. She let herself into the house and hung up her handbag. She turned on a light in the living room and wandered into the kitchen.

She stood at the screen door and looked out into the yard. It was very dark. Strange. The dog did not come running to greet her when she opened the inside door.

"Baxter?"

Louder: "BAXTER?" He was not there.

Cuddy froze. _Oh God! He got away! Wilson will have kittens! He wanted House to have that dog!_

She hurried back inside and called Wilson's cell phone.

He'd turned it off. She called his apartment. It rang and rang. Answering machine: "This is James Wilson. Please leave your name and a …" She called his office telephone. _Please James … be there!_ No answer.

Lisa didn't dare call House's hospital room! Only one thing to do.

Cuddy grabbed her handbag off the hook and hurried back to her car. She backed it out of the driveway and onto the quiet street.

All within the space of about ten minutes, she was headed back to the hospital.

Again!

oooooooooooooooooooo

66


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"Just a Touch of 'Sneakery'!"

"Stop here!"

"What? Where? Why'd you bring me all the way out here … ? Ohhh … I see … You wanna go in from the back … right?"

"I thought it might be the best course of action … wouldn't you agree?"

"Okay, yeah! Now I get it!"

"Freight elevator's back here!"

"Right!"

The dark grey Ford Explorer crept along beside dumpsters, refuse bins and hazardous waste containers. Its shadow lengthened and then shrank down again as it moved in and out of hazy light puddles, the only means of illumination along the rear access to PPTH.

When they passed the last alcove where tractor-trailers made their daily deliveries, Eric Foreman paralleled the building deep in shadow and shut off the engine. The men's eyes met briefly across the expanse of the front seat. They didn't laugh, but they were close.

"Wilson, you amaze me," Foreman said at last. "I had you pegged all wrong."

Wilson offered his best chin-dipping pseudo-frown. "Why is that?"

"I never thought you'd go through with this. Figured you'd chicken out for sure."

"Couldn't," Wilson said. "House asked us to bring him …"

Foreman sighed heavily and shook his head in amazement. "Y'know, Wilson, that son of a bitch has every one of us jumping through hoops for him … and all he has to do is waggle his little finger!"

Wilson smiled a tad, snuffing softly in agreement. "He does have that certain … _way_ … about him …"

"'_Way?' _ Is that what it is? I don't get it," Foreman continued. "I realize now how badly injured his leg was … is … and I _sort-of_ understand the way he must hurt every day of his life. But the power he has over people, and the fact that he knows it and exploits it … just blows me the-hell away! What _is_ it with the man?"

Then Wilson did laugh, understanding exactly what was puzzling his younger colleague. "Y'know, Eric … if I had the answer to that, I'd probably let you in on it and we could bottle it. None of us would ever have to work again for the rest of our lives."

Foreman snorted. "Tell me about it!"

By the time they let Baxter out the back of the SUV, the big brown dog was prancing and panting with excitement. He wasn't quite sure what was going on, but he was ready for any adventure these two foolish humans were willing to offer. He sniffed around at the old brickwork of the building and then lifted his leg on it in a happy aura of nonchalance. Foreman and Wilson laughed lightly, cut if off quickly. Guiltily! Twice Wilson had to pull back on the leash and shush him to keep him from breaking into a flurry of exuberant barking.

The two men were almost as excited about their nocturnal excursion as their furry friend, but they did not dare allow any more noise than the absolute minimum. It was going to be an exercise in "sneakery", and the odds were excellent that someone would see them and rat them out anyway.

They had a gauntlet of corridors to navigate if they were to make it to the freight elevator without incident. A circuitous, round-about path would bring them into contact with the fewest night-shift people and the ever-present security guards.

They almost made it.

Wilson had a tight hold on Baxter's leash. There was only one remaining bend in the corridor before they could close the door of the freight elevator securely and make their escape all the way from the sub-basement to the third floor without being discovered.

Almost!

A security guard was checking the air pressure in a fire extinguisher right next to the yawning door of the open elevator. The man turned just as the two doctors and the dog made the corner and headed in his direction. It was too late to turn back.

"What the hell? What's this? Dr. Wilson? Dr. Foreman? What are you doing with this … dog?"

Baxter chose that moment to run up to the man, tail wagging, tongue out and ready to make friends. The man patted his head.

In the meantime, Foreman was thinking on his feet. "Hi Barney," he said. "Like to stop and shoot the breeze awhile, but we gotta get this mutt upstairs. A man has Vatagialis Primus and he's fading fast. This is the only breed of dog in North America that has a tissue match for a Vataige patient. This guy here …" indicating Baxter with convincingly sorrowful dark eyes … "is going to save a man's life tonight. You ready, Dr. Wilson?"

Wilson picked up on the ridiculously blatant lie and ran with it, holding back startlement and amusement with a tightly held breath. "Uh … yeah … we gotta get going. It's all in the timing! Thanks, Barney … have a good night … see you …"

"Uh … see you later, doctors … it's a shame. He's a nice dog …"

"Yeah … he is …" They scurried away from Barney and onto the elevator like rats escaping a sinking ship.

The top half of the heavy elevator door trundled downward to slam against its other half, rushing up to meet it, with a hollow bang. When the two halves connected, Foreman slammed the safety grille closed, grabbed the activating handle, and pushed the crawl lever forward. The heavy gears meshed together in a screeching metallic groan, and they were on their way to Gregory House …

… laughing like two foxes in a henhouse!

oooooooooooooooooooo

Gregg was in pain, letting the discomfort find a voice and biting off each breath in a tortured "chuff" that rocked his entire body. Two night nurses were with him, bathing his forehead with cold cloths, but they were not authorized to increase his pain meds without a doctor's authorization. The night-shift attending had his hands full elsewhere and could not take the time to come over. He told the nurses to stay with House until he could get there for an evaluation.

Someone had called Wilson's office, his apartment and his cell phone, none of which did he answer. They tried Cuddy at home, but she wasn't answering either.

Out in the corridor, John and Blythe House stood outside the glass wall watching their son suffer one leg spasm after another. Heartbroken and anguished, they clutched each other and watched in horrified fascination. They had never witnessed one the spasms before.

The intercom system came alive and called out an "available-doctor" summons for room 317. A minute later two lab-coated residents came running down the hallway.

From their position outside the room, Blythe and John saw the vertical blinds close in a flurry of movement. After that they were blind and deaf to whatever went on in there.

Lisa Cuddy hurried to Room 317 when she heard the bulletin on the loudspeaker. She answered her cell phone when it rang, but she was already on her way. She forgot about the missing dog and made tracks to House's bedside. She saw Gregg's parents and wondered what the hell they were doing there. She couldn't stop to ask them now.

A vial of Demerol administered directly, stopped the spasms and gave him respite. He collapsed, sweating and heaving, into the pillow.

Wilson and Foreman and Baxter were already on the third floor when they heard the page to House's room. Wilson handed Foreman the leash and whirled around, senses at high alert; took off at a run.

_Oh God! House!_

"Take him up to my office!" He called over his shoulder. "It's open!"

Foreman and the dog spun around and ran in the opposite direction. Baxter thought it was a game and barked explosively. Foreman jerked the leash and ran faster. Baxter followed eagerly all the way back to the elevator.

Blythe turned to John anxiously. "Did you just hear a dog bark?"

"Yeah … look … here comes Dr. Cuddy!"

"And Dr. Wilson!" She added.

Cuddy came off the 'up' elevator and Wilson came out of the 'down' one. Both doctors disappeared into Gregg's room and were swallowed up by the ominous vertical blinds.

They waited.

In Wilson's office Eric Foreman sat with Baxter snoozing by his feet. Baxter slept. Eric waited. He wished Wilson would let him know if House was okay. He was amazed at himself for the unfamiliar pocket of anxiety he felt for the strange disabled man who was his boss. He'd never thought of House as "crippled" before. He'd thought of him as an "asshole." A whiny, angry one at that! Actually, he was both. He was also the most unique individual Foreman had ever met. And one of the most courageous! What a difference a day made!

John and Blythe House waited in uncomfortable plastic chairs outside Gregg's room. Fifteen minutes passed, then a half hour.

The two residents emerged from the room with vials of something in their hands. They hurried off down the hallway without looking to the right or the left.

Lisa Cuddy walked into the corridor shortly afterward with a look of relief on her face. She had peeled off a pair of rubber gloves, but still held them in one hand. "He's all right," she said breathlessly as she walked over to where they were seated.

"We gave him a shot for the spasms, and they've stopped. He's much better. They're setting up a new IV for the night … something to help him sleep. Our people drew some blood samples and they're taking it to the lab now. We checked his leg, and it's still a little swollen. His old injury doesn't like the close proximity of the new one … and it was reminding him about it. In the morning they'll take him down for a new evaluation, but he should be more comfortable now. They're putting new dressings on the leg. He'll be groggy, but don't worry! He's fine!"

_Fine!_

Where had they heard _that_ before? "The Gregory House Theme Song!" Around this place, _everybody_ sang it!

She frowned at them, curious. "What are you two doing here at this time of night?"

"We were worried," John said. _"I_ was worried … we couldn't sleep, so we came on over. We're glad we did."

"How would you like to go down to the cafeteria with me? We can have coffee together while he settles down. Believe me, he'll be much more congenial after his pain has eased up. We need to give him an hour or so. Dr. Wilson is in there with him now, and he'll probably stay the rest of the night, if I know James. What the hell … I've got all night too … looks like all of us have!" She grinned. She felt better now that House was better.

They agreed easily, and Lisa led them in the direction of the same elevator that had brought them up there.

Wilson stood in House's doorway and watched Cuddy and House's parents walk away. _What in the world are they doing here so late at night? Wish they hadn't had to see him in the middle of leg spasms. That couldn't have been fun …_

When the elevator door closed on the trio, Wilson turned and walked back to the bed. House was still breathing a little faster than normal, but his eyes were heavy lidded and a little out of focus. Wilson reached out and touched the backs of his fingers to the healthy side of his friend's face. He was happy to see the black eye turning a lighter shade, and the cuts beginning to scab over. Most of the swelling at his cheek and temple had receded.

"Hey!" Softly. "Have the seventy-six trombones backed off to clarinets yet?"

House smiled weakly at the musical reference. "The leg? Marching past bassoons and headed for violins. My hand, though … that's still a bass drum surrounded by tympanis! I think I bumped it sometime while my leg was trying to jump off the bed and do a tap dance all by itself …"

Wilson walked around to the opposite side of the bed and gently picked up the injured hand. Carefully he checked the splint and the anchoring bandage, and then ran his fingers expertly up House's arm, feeling for changes in the musculature and searching for further swelling. "It seems to be doing all right. Thumping?"

"Yeah. I need to hold it up. Elevated. Helps." He searched Wilson's face for a moment, and Wilson got a distinct feeling of quiet despair.

"What? What is it?"

"I can't seem to do one fucking thing right!"

"What? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Another ten miles an hour and that thing would have arced like a Gladstone missile. Dived itself into the ground like a giant Sequoia and taken root right there. And me with it!"

"House!"

"Ah, Jimmy … don't worry … I wasn't trying to 'piff' myself if that's what you're worried about. I'm not _that_ stupid! Besides, who would look after you and make sure you ate right … and said your prayers at night … and brushed your teeth and combed your hair? You'd miss your Uncle Gregg."

"House … one of these days …"

"Awww … you'd miss me, Jimmy, if I wasn't around to watch out for you …" His eyes were slowly closing, the deep voice fading out. The injured hand which he'd been holding vertical to the bed began to ease back down again.

Wilson took House's wrist and placed it onto the soft pillow at his side, beginning to think their clandestine dog roundup awhile ago had been in vain. Now he and Foreman would have to sneak Baxter out of the hospital again.

_Oh joy!_

He turned to leave and stood in the doorway for a moment with his head down. Some of his thoughts were most confusing. He did not want to leave House's side. Not now; not ever.

Damned confusing!

Wilson paused a moment and looked back. House was staring at him, blue eyes bright and amused. Wilson scowled. "I thought you were asleep."

"Fooled ya. I'm hungry."

"You are?"

"Yeah. Ice cream. Willya?"

"Tonight? Now? What if you get the …"

"Shits? I'll handle that when it happens. If it does!"

"House … what the hell am I going to do with you?"

"You're gonna feed me ice cream … that's what you're going to do with me. Now scram before one of those damned nurses comes back!"

Wilson walked into the corridor and turned left, in the direction of the elevator. It had been nearly an hour since they'd come back here and run into pandemonium. Now, things had suddenly taken a turn for the better. He quickened his pace, shook his head slightly and smiled foolishly. The nighttime visit might be on again. He'd have to see what Foreman thought.

He'd look around for ice cream … later.

At the doorway to his office he stopped abruptly. Voices! Foreman wasn't the only human in there … unless Baxter had suddenly taken to speaking like a girl. He opened his door and walked in.

There, on the old couch across from his desk, Foreman, Cameron and Chase sat playing with the dog.

_Oh, for cryin' out loud!_

oooooooooooooooooooo

Cameron looked up and smiled charmingly. "Foreman called us, Dr. Wilson. He thought maybe we could come over and help divert the troops while you took … someone … to see Dr. House."

Beside her, Chase nodded his head in agreement. "If you expect to pull off this little 'cay-puh'," he said carefully, you may requiah a few more hands in the pot, so to speak?"

Wilson's gaze lingered on both of them in turn, both of them in scruffy clothing, both obviously not intending to return to the hospital tonight, but lured in by Foreman's call for help.

Wilson shook his head in wonder as he centered his attention back on the black doctor who sat there so self-satisfied with a smug look on his face, hand scratching gently behind the ears of the contented brown dog.

"Wow!" Wilson said.

How the hell did House do it? How did he manage to cast this mysterious spell over all of his staff and everyone who touched him … or them? How? House did not even need to be there in order to make things pop. All that was required was the mention of his name in the same breath as a need in his behalf … and the bells rang and the whistles blew … and the crap flew! There was a raging typhoon that blew a powerful wind over Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, and its name was Gregory House!

ospitalHispitalNot his to figure out right now, Wilson thought. Where help is offered, take it! He drew a deep breath. "All right … let's go for it!"

He pointed a finger at Cameron and waggled it back and forth to include Chase. "You two! Get down to the cafeteria and waylay Cuddy. She's there with House's parents. They came in on an impulse tonight because they were worried about House. They'll be antsy to see him, and she diverted them to give me some time with him. Cam, I know you met his parents briefly, so go say hello and try to keep them occupied a little longer.

"I don't care what you tell them … tell them he's getting some kind of treatment or something. Make something up. Chase, you back her up, and if you have to, convince Cuddy that his pain has escalated again … just stretch it out another hour if you can. Even a half hour will help. Foreman and I will take Baxter over there as soon as the two of you leave.

"Go!"

Both young ones were up and gone. Fresh lab coats pulled over old tee-shirts and shorts, raggedy sneakers notwithstanding. This was an emergency. (What a crock!) They both loved the excitement and danger factor of it … plus the unprecedented pleasure of doing something kind for Dr. House. They hoped he never found out … they would never live it down!

Wilson and Foreman checked the empty hallway for straggling night shift personnel. None were in sight. Foreman took Baxter's leash and they started off down the corridor. To the elevator and down one floor. Room 317.

oooooooooooooooooooo

74


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"A Bit of House and Baxter"

Wilson and Foreman stood at the doorway of House's room. Baxter sat at their feet. The dog was bored. He licked his chops and looked around at the strange sights, and smelled the strange smells. He sniffed, blinked, wondered what in the world these humans were up to now. His ears were working back and forth again, just like those fork-lift gears.

"Well," Foreman whispered in Wilson's ear, "whaddaya think?"

Inside the room, House lay quietly on his bed. His bandaged leg was propped on its pillow, his splinted hand again cradled at his left elbow. He was not asleep. Wilson could see the fingers of his left hand keeping time on the mattress to some obscure syncopated rhythm in his head. He was waiting for his ice cream. In another two to three minutes he would begin to get pissy again. This was the real world, after all, and House was House.

Wilson nodded and slid the glass door open. Foreman removed the leash and gave a push to Baxter's rump.

"Go get 'im, boy!" He whispered. He and Wilson retreated behind the closed vertical panels to wait and see what happened.

Nothing.

Baxter stood bewildered, looking around.

_Okay, guys … what am I s'posed to do now? Is this a game? If it is, fine, but I don't think I understand the rules …_

House had heard the door open and close. He turned his head slightly to the right. "Hey! Wilson? It's about time! You got my ice cr … what the hell?"

House and Baxter were face to face, and it was a glaring standoff.

"Wil-_son-n-n!_ There's a damned _dog_ in my room!"

Wilson bit down on his lip and clenched his eyes tightly shut, but he did not rise to the bait. "Handle it, House!" He whispered, suddenly tempted to giggle like a girl.

Beside him, Foreman snickered into his palm and placed his other hand supportively on Wilson's shoulder. "E-e-e-zy boy!" Also a whisper.

They waited and watched, shoulders shaking helplessly.

Baxter walked over and sat down by the foot of the bed. He looked up at the grizzled apparition which glared back at him. Bored. Blasé. Disinterested.

_Am I supposed to be afraid of you? You don't scare me much. There's no size eleven boot on your foot, so you can't kick me. You got any food?_

No answer. Just the glare from angry human eyes. Baxter looked around the expanse of the room. Nothing was familiar. He had seen the strange soft platforms upon which humans liked to rest … had enjoyed the softness of them himself a few times … until that booted foot he still remembered kicked him unceremoniously onto the floor. But this one was different. It was very high off the floor. Too many things stuck out all over it. And it smelled really bad.

Baxter sneezed. _Oof! _ Sneezed again. Something strange … familiar … came through with the odor this time. Something he had smelled before had been similar to this! What was it? He continued to sniff the strangeness of it. Then he got up and walked about the room, nose still raised into the air.

_Have we met? _

The steely gaze of the human on the bed followed him closely. There was something that spoke of menace in that stare. Dark fury. A threat. But it was also a bluff! This human was about as dangerous as the dead rabbit he'd found in the middle of the road once. Enticing, but squashed flat and inedible. And it was too dead to threaten him. Was the human dying?

Baxter finished his circuit of the room and sat down closer to the bedside this time. He was not in the least intimidated. Far from it. Something was wrong with this human. It was injured and in pain and trying not to show it. He could smell the pheromones of its pain, even as they mingled with the other smells that humans often deluged upon themselves.

Something hazy reached out with probing fingers, picking intermittently at Baxter's simple mind and toying with his confused senses. Something barely visible within his memory called to him from far away and niggled at his meager thinking processes. Baxter was puzzled. Curious. He cocked his head and stared at the injured human.

The human continued to watch and stare silently in return. Anger was gradually replaced by his own curiosity. Presently a frown of inquisition replaced even the curiosity. A need to know! Baxter met the intense gaze and found it difficult to look away. He could feel an urgent desperation for knowledge and information.

From the human!

And from himself!

Baxter licked his chops nervously and finally averted his eyes. The intensity of the penetrating look had continued far too long, pinning him to the spot; compelling him to raise his eyes again and look where the gaze commanded.

Brightness! Brightness wiped away the irritation of prickled nerves. And then something else began to emerge. Wonder … empathy … astonishment.

And recognition!

At that moment, Baxter knew. The dying human in the field! The scent was different, and yet, the same. It had been masked by something more recent that hovered overtop of it with a fragile delicacy.

The human knew also. They were of one mind.

"You're that crummy mutt from the culvert! You stuck your goddamn dirty nose in my ear … licked my neck with your germy tongue! Christ! Wilson brought you in here? When I see him, I'm gonna rip him limb from limb! God only knows where you had your scuzzy snoot before that!"

Baxter yawned.

_You sure talk a lot for a sick human! But you don't SAY anything! Am I still supposed to be scared of you like … from before? You can't move from there … so guess what! I'm NOT!_

Gregory House could feel the agitation building. He wanted to smack Wilson … and kick the dog until it ran yelping from his presence with its tail between its legs. He needed to stamp his foot and pace the floor, throw his hands in the air and shout his frustration to the world. Instead, he was a prisoner in a hospital bed, not able to do any of the above.

He felt restricted; smothered. He was being buried alive beneath his own helplessness, and restrained by the disability and crippledness of his current situation. And the able-bodied _dog_ sat beside his bed with a smug, holier-than-thou look on its long, frizzy bewhiskered face. Life wasn't fair!

An impending sense of horror began to build suddenly, restricting his breathing, and he recognized the symptoms in his physician's mind as blind panic. He must not allow it to surface. He held his breath and fought the dread, but it held him in thrall. Slave to the strangling grip of his own helplessness. He clenched his eyes closed and tried to ride it out. His hand throbbed and the thumping in his leg was a living agony. If he couldn't stop this, the pain meds would be useless and he would be screaming …

This was a dog. _ A dog, for chrissake!_

Gregg hitched another breath, closed his eyes and held tight for a moment; relaxed his body by sheer force of will. Over the years he'd become an expert at it.

_Stop this!_

His next breath left his throat in a shudder of silent sobs. He looked quickly toward his left side and saw the dog rise onto its hind legs, front paws propped on the edge of his bed. The smooth, brown, furry face was somehow laced with a deep concern. It didn't look so grizzled and bewhiskered up close. A look of tenderness was on its face, like a mother bear with a cub. The brown eyes were almost moist as they looked at him. The shaggy ears were at the alert, and it was watching him closely in the kindest manner Gregg could imagine. His head swam.

He gulped, panting. He was the animal here, and the dog was the compassionate one. Reminded him suddenly of Wilson. Wilson in a fur coat. Damn Wilson!

_I know you're in there … I can hear you caring!_ His own words, months before, slammed into his consciousness. Almost made him smile.

The dog's ears perked forward, giving it an inquisitive look. Its head tilted, first one way, then the other, as though saying:

_Okay, pal … I'm listening. What's on your mind?_

Gregg House couldn't help himself. His mind released the anger; the panic. He allowed his head to relax back into the pillow and let the shadow of a smile warm his face. His expression was almost bashful at first, and then it grew with his sense of wonder.

"Think you got my number, do ya?"

_Who? Me? I'm not trying to get your number. What does that mean? You're mistaking me for yourself! I sense that you are frightened. I was frightened too. How can I help?_

"What the hell made you come up to me out in that field?"

_I was just looking for something to eat!_

"I was hurt … and bloodied. You smelled that, didn't you? You were going to try to take a bite out of me."

_Well, that thought did occur to me …_

"What changed your mind?"

'_Cause you were just like me. Scared. Hurting. You thought you were gonna die there. Me too …_

"But you stayed with me. Why?"

_Same reason. We needed each other …_

"No way! I didn't need you! I can't stand dogs!"

_Would you feel better if I just said I needed you?_

"I dunno … maybe. But I_ said_ … I don't like dogs. Damned things smell. Lift their legs and piss on the furniture. Chew up your socks, dig up the yard, bark their asses off and leave dog hair all over everything."

_You're really mistaking me for somebody else …_

"The Hell!"

_How 'bout if I ask YOU a question?_

"What?"

_You could have just left me out there. You didn't owe me anything. The police would have just taken me to the pound and had me put to sleep. I growled at them and made them angry. But you asked your friends to bring me …_

"I must have been delirious!"

_You're not as mean as you want people to think!_

"How would you know?"

_Because I know I got to you!_

"Like hell!"

_Then what?_

"Because you made them look under there. If you hadn't got their attention, I might be dead now. So I owed you. So what? Now we're even. You can go away anytime."

_Nah … that's not the reason. I got to you! I'm not going anywhere. You're a pushover._

"Shit! Well, trust me, Bristleface … we're not going have any long-time love affair. When I wake up from this nightmare you're gonna be gone. Poof! Like a bad dream."

_You think I'm just a dream then?_

"Yeah. Aren't you?"

_Nope!_

"Can't prove it by me."

_Can I get down from here now? I've been standing on my hind legs a long time, and it's starting to hurt …_

"That's how I feel … every day!"

_I'm sorry about that … really I am …but can I get down now?_

"Yeah, I guess … No! Wait!"

_What?_

"Can you get up here beside me without jarring my leg or my hand? They're hurt. Bad. I won't be able to walk for a long time … and I'm …"

_Oh hey … easy … I'm sorry._

"Christ! You even _sound_ like Wilson!"

_What's a Wilson?_

"Never mind. Just get up here."

_Okay. _ _I will. Thanks …_

The dog went down again on all fours. He walked around the bed for a moment to limber up.

In the hallway, Foreman looked at Wilson. "What's he doing?"

"I don't know. Just watch!"

They heard the elevator door open behind them. Both men turned to look.

"Uh oh …"

Cuddy, Cameron, Chase, Blythe and John House: coming closer. All of them jabbering at once!

The brown, stinky stuff was about to hit the fan …

"What are you boys doing crouched in the corridor?"

Foreman pointed a finger toward Gregg House's room.

Five pairs of hands parted five pairs of vertical slats. Five pairs of additional eyes paused to peer curiously in the direction Foreman was pointing.

Both he and Wilson had huge, self-satisfied smiles on their faces.

Breaths were drawn. Exclamations came from every awed throat.

"What the devil is going on in there? My God! It's Baxter!" Cuddy's voice was awed. Disbelieving. "I thought he got away. But hospital regulations …" She stopped; let it go. What she was seeing at this moment was something beyond all understanding.

Blythe House: "I knew I heard a dog barking …"

John House: "Who in the hell is Baxter? Is that a _dog_ in Gregg's room?"

Cameron: "Oh Chase … LOOK!"

"I'm looking! And I don't believe it!"

Inside the room, the brown dog was curled tightly … comfortably … against Gregg House's good left side. Bax's chin lay protectively at Gregg's shoulder, exactly as he'd laid there in the culvert.

It was almost four o'clock in the morning. Gregory House had dropped off to sleep at last, the querulous request for ice cream, long forgotten. His injured right hand rested on Baxter's neck and half buried in Baxter's ruff. There was the ghost of a smile on his bewhiskered face. The two of them were somewhat of a match.

(If one looked close enough, one might have seen the smiles on _both_ faces!)

oooooooooooooooooooo

82


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"Man of the Hour"

Sunlight was streaming in the windows to his far left when next he opened his eyes. He looked around himself, reorienting his position in the room and frowning for a moment, testing his memory of events from the past eight hours or so.

The dog was gone, if indeed there actually had been a dog, and not just another aspect of a drug-induced hallucination. Wilson was gone also, along with the nurses and doctors he vaguely remembered from the day before. He also remembered the flurry of intense activity when his pain had accelerated into the bone-jarring leg spasms and he'd found himself ready to scream.

Had he? Were those memories real, or were they figments of still other wildly fictitious goings-on inside his head?

His injured hand ached dully and he cradled it close to his chest. His leg called out to him a little more than that. And he had to piss like a race horse! At least these things were very real … and not part of some horrible dream. Reality was horrible enough!

He remembered having some half-assed dream conversation with a very large brown dog. The mutt had seemed so real that the illusion of its doggie odor still remained in his nostrils. He looked to his left and frowned. A few small fuzzballs of brown dog hair adhered to the sheet by his left side. The corner of his pillow still smelled of an animal that had recently been bathed in Hi-Lo Dip!

_The damned dog was real!_

He turned his head toward the door and yelled. "WIL-SON!"

A nurse he didn't know stuck her head around the corner into his room. "Dr. House? Are you all right?"

"Hell no, I'm not all right! Go find somebody and get Dr. Wilson in here … and a couple of orderlies! Make it quick! I have to _go_!"

"Yes, doctor," and she was gone.

Ten minutes passed. No one showed up. He rang for the nurse. Another young female he didn't recognize poked her head around the corner. "Can I help you, doctor?"

"Where's Dr. Wilson?"

"They're finding him."

"I really wish somebody would get their shit together around here … before my shit gets away from me! My leg hurts! And I _need_ to use the head!"

"Can I help you until they find him?"

"You gonna lift me into a wheelchair? And then wheel me to the head? Stand me on my feet … _foot_? Get me on the toilet and hold my damn leg while I take a pee and a dump?"

"Uh … no … sorry. I'll find somebody right away!"

"Better hurry!"

She fled.

He didn't even know what time it was. He hadn't seen his watch for days. He waited while intercom pages for Dr. James Wilson: "_Please call the third floor nurse's station! Dr. James Wilson, please call the _ …" went unanswered.

He was getting desperate. He worried at his left thumbnail with his front teeth and watched the door like a badger lying in wait for a groundhog.

The space was suddenly filled with the sturdy body of Blackjack House, looking pissed off and put out. "Gregg? Son?" The look had been misleading. The old man sounded worried.

_What gives? What the hell is he doing here?_

He almost groaned in consternation. Not only hadn't they sent Wilson, or a couple of strong orderlies to handle his rumbling-gut emergency, but the page had reached the ears of his hard-assed ex-Marine-Colonel father! Blackjack House had arrived in his doorway with a scowl on his face and what looked like a bellyful of attitude. "What's going on in here? Gregory? Are you all right? You really had us worried yesterday …"

"I need Wilson … and somebody to get me to the head! Now! Will you find somebody? Please?"

"Dr. Wilson went home to try to get some sleep. His ass was dragging his tracks shut. He and Dr. Foreman took Baxter and dropped him off at Dr. Cuddy's, so Foreman won't be back right away either. Will I do? I may not pass as one of your orderlies, but I think I can still handle _your_ sorry ass!" There was a look of wry amusement on his Dad's face that House wasn't sure he knew how to interpret.

He looked the gray haired man up and down.

_They took Baxter where? Who the hell is Baxter? That mutt?_

Gregg weighed his options quickly and realized there weren't any.

"Dad … dammit … I'm too heavy for you! You can't do it alone. And I have no balance. I'm clumsy, I'm hurt badly … and I'm in pain. Please … go find someone. I have no fucking intentions of getting you hurt too!"

It came out harsher than he'd intended, and his father just stood and stared at him helplessly for a long moment. Was there nothing the man wouldn't do to humiliate him?

Blackjack squared his jaw and walked up to his son's bedside. He reached out tentatively to settle his palm on a bony shoulder, and as he did so, he spoke softly. The blue eyes were moist as he looked at his son's bruised face. "I know the two of us don't have much to talk about anymore, Gregg, and I'm sure-as-hell sorry about that. But I'd like to help you, if you'll let me. If we go slow and easy, I think we can handle this together."

The old man's voice was cracking a little, and gentler than Gregg had ever heard it before. He stared, a tad nonplussed, contemplating.

"Dad … dammit …"

"C'mon, Gregg! Slow and easy. I'd never do anything to hurt you. I'll bring the damn wheelchair over and put the brakes on. You slide across to me. Put your right arm around my neck … that shouldn't hurt your hand, right? When you slide down from the bed, I'll hold your leg straight till you can lower yourself into the chair. Then we'll go. We can figure out the rest once we get you into the head. Will you let me do this for you, Gregg?"

House glared, half exasperated. The old man talked a good line, but he could picture himself slipping, because he hadn't the strength not to … and throwing them both on the floor, to no one's best interests.

"Dad …"

"Let's go! Hut two!"

"Aww … ferchrissake …"

Blackjack grinned. "That's my boy!" He said. "Please try to trust me."

Gregg almost laughed in his face, but choked it off. Very slowly he leaned down and placed his arm gingerly about his father's thick neck. The old man held steady. He was like a rock.

"Easy now! Easy … let me get your leg. I'm going to be as careful as I can. Tell me if I hurt you, okay?"

He inched his way to the edge of the bed, biting his lip nervously, and began to slide down. "If you hear me scream my head off, you'll know you hurt me. Okay?" Blackjack was bent slightly at the waist, supporting his arm and cradling his injured leg with a tenderness his son had no idea he possessed.

His Dad was busy and did not answer, except for a surprised accenting grunt.

Blackjack eased across in front of the wheelchair and lowered Gregg's leg gently onto the raised footrest. He straightened easily as Gregg settled into the seat, and unwrapped the slender arm from around his shoulder. Gregg was still grimacing when he placed his hand carefully in his lap. His eyes darted from his father's face, to the side, and back again. Somehow they'd made it.

How did you say thanks to someone you thought you had hated for years?

"You all right?" The old man asked. There was naked concern in his bright blue eyes, and Gregg could not meet them head-on.

"Yeah … give me a minute …"

Blackjack stooped at the front of the wheelchair and arranged the flimsy hospital gown discreetly around Gregg's lower body. "Gotta cover your Six here …"

"What?"

Blackjack grinned. "Well … there are still parts of a man's anatomy he wants to keep secret from the general public, right? You good to go, son?"

"Ahhh … yeah. Could you get a fucking move on?" He felt the sudden urge to laugh maniacally. He suppressed it.

John chuckled. "Yes _sir_!"

They trundled slowly across the room, and his Dad propped open the wide door to the handicapped rest room.

Blackjack made no pissy remarks about the accommodations, or the built-in bars and straps for physical assistance. He only reversed his careful operations from the bedside and eased Gregg across onto the toilet. He stood in front of him, turned sideways, affording his son the privacy he needed, while effectively blocking the view from the corridor. He held the crippled leg straight out with loving and tender hands.

"You still have the little scar on your foot from the time you stepped on the rusty nail when you were ten," Blackjack observed softly. "I had forgotten that. And you still have the mark on your ankle bone from the time you jumped off the merry-go-round horse on the mall in D. C. and caught your foot on the stirrup."

"I didn't know you remembered any of that stuff …"

"I remember a lot more than you think." The admission was subdued; a little reluctant and a tad apologetic.

Gregg had no words that could adequately express what he felt at that moment. He bit back the pain in his leg and in his heart, and concentrated on taking a crap, along with a good healthy piss. When he announced that he was ready to return to bed, his injuries were hurting. He did his best not to let it show. He watched his father with wildly mixed emotions.

By the time an attending finally appeared in his doorway with a pair of orderlies, Gregg was already back in bed with his leg propped on the pillow and his hand cradled gingerly against his chest. He had taken his meds and his pain had receded a little. Blackjack House was in the visitor's chair by his side. They were watching Wheel of Fortune, shouting out the answers in competition with each other as soon as a few letters began to show up on the board. They came up with some silly-ass answers.

"Didn't you need to …?" The attending asked.

"Too late," Gregg snapped. "I already crapped myself! You guys better get some mops and a bucket."

The orderlies blanched and Gregg and his Dad laughed raucously.

The attending threw his hands up in the air and said something under his breath. He did an "about face" and stomped out. Gregg thought he heard his name being taken in vain. The orderlies filed out behind him.

"Mmmm …" Blackjack mused, watching the almost-perfect military 180. "I hear that the Marines are still looking for a few good men …"

The two of them laughed together.

oooooooooooo

Lisa Cuddy and Blythe House both arrived in his room at noon. Cuddy was on her lunch hour and Blythe had been to a department store to select some appropriate clothing for her son to wear in place of the uncomfortable hospital gowns.

The two women paused in the doorway and stared in astonishment at the men inside. Laughing and talking together like a pair of old friends, Gregg and John were doing their best to deal with old wounds and deep misunderstandings they had both been harboring for years.

Gregg's lunch arrived while they were there, and Blythe had brought sodas and sandwiches from a local deli. When Gregg saw the dry Reuben and Mountain Dew laid out before him, his eyes widened like a little boy in a candy store. He pushed his baked fish aside in favor of the heartier fare. With his disabled hand, he could not maneuver the sandwich. They took turns helping him. He put up with it in an annoyed manner, but wisely, did not complain.

"Thanks, Mom … best Reuben I ever ate!"

"You're welcome, sweetheart."

Cuddy leered at him when his mother called him 'sweetheart', and winked with a sly smile on her face. He bristled, but again, wisely, said nothing.

John and Blythe laughingly shared a huge hoagie and cans of diet Pepsi. Lisa Cuddy had a Sprite and a jar of mixed fruit she'd brought up from her office fridge. The four of them sat and visited for the whole hour.

Lisa watched House's face silently, relieved that some of the deep marks of pain had finally lifted from his brow. At least temporarily!

From time to time, Blythe House simply sat back and smiled through happy tears as she watched her husband and son working very hard at patching up old wounds. Maybe some day they would come to respect one another, and maybe even rekindle the fires of love they had once enjoyed as father and son when Gregg was very small.

After Cuddy returned to her office, John closed the vertical blinds and they brought out the sweat pants and shirts Blythe had purchased downtown. She took scissors from her purse and cut off the right leg of the gray pants to a spot above the knee. John cut the right wristband off the shirt not quite to the elbow. Carefully, they helped Gregg into the sweats and took note that when they had finished, he finally looked more comfortable.

He did not tell them he was mortified that they had seen his crippled, pitifully thin body. He'd heard them hitch their breaths in dismay, but he ignored it. There were no words …

ooooooooooooooo

James Wilson returned close to the end of first shift. By that time, Blythe and John House had gone back to Gregg's apartment to snag some well-earned sleep. Foreman still had not put in an appearance. Chase and Cameron, however, he'd noticed, were both in the conference room next to House's office.

Wilson did a few minutes' catch-up work in his own office and then went down to check on Gregg. He had something very important to tell his friend.

Pausing in the doorway, he stood for a moment and just watched House in repose. There was something deliberately appealing about the man when he appeared in sweat suits, Wilson thought. The loose and comfortable leisure attire hid some of the stark, hollow gauntness, and brought out the bright blue of his beautiful eyes. James could not seem to keep himself from staring

He held a paper bag in his hand, and it was necessary that he give it to his friend very soon. It was already beginning to melt …

House looked, at first, to be asleep, but James knew it was not so. Gregg's head was pressed back against the pillow, his broken hand once again cradled in the crook of his opposite elbow. He was staring at the ceiling.

When Wilson walked in and approached the bed, House rolled his eyes at him and almost smiled. Wilson nearly fainted.

"Well!" He exclaimed. "To what do we owe the 'happy'?"

"I was thinking …"

"Uh oh! No, don't say anymore! I don't think I can stand it! Here!" He held out the paper bag.

House eyed it curiously. "Sexy underwear? Drywall screws? A dead squirrel? What?"

"Take it and see." Smiling, he held it across House's body so he could grasp it with his left hand.

Gingerly, House repositioned his injured hand onto the pillow and reached up. The bag was cold. "Ice cream! You remembered my ice cream!" He was positively giddy.

Wilson rolled his eyes. He guessed it was as close to a 'thank you' as he'd ever get. He grinned. "You're welcome." He waggled his fingers impatiently. "Here … gimmie it back! You can't get it by yourself." He grabbed the bag and opened it up to pull out the Styrofoam cup inside. It held two scoops of chocolate marshmallow ice cream.

House eyed the prize appreciatively. "Wow! Cool! I guess I should keep you around awhile."

Wilson spooned over the gooey stuff with a plastic spoon, bite by bite, until they were gone and House sighed with contentment. "So what were you thinking about?"

"Huh?"

"You said you were thinking …"

"And you said I shouldn't say anymore …"

"That was before you ate your ice cream …"

"Oh. Yeah. So … who says the mutt's name is Baxter?"

"What?"

"That dog you guys dumped off in my room last night. My old man says his name is Baxter … and that he's over at Cuddy's."

"Yeah … so?"

"Who gave him that name?"

"How the hell would I know? The kid at the vet's office said they took an old collar off him that had it engraved there. If you don't want to call him Baxter, then just call him something else! He's your dog, you know."

"'Something-Else' sounds like a good dog-name to you?" House's nose was wrinkled in a familiar manner.

"Don't push it, House! Call him whatever you want to call him! He's a nice dog. He's a gentleman, which is more than I can possibly say for you … even stretching it. Do you want to keep him?"

"How?" He looked down at his hand and his leg. "It wouldn't be fair to him, even after this mess is healed. A big dog like that needs to run. He won't be running much if he has to live with me."

"I'm just saying …" Wilson said awkwardly. "It's all up to you. He did have a part in saving your miserable life, you know. If you'd have lain there much longer, you might be worm food by now."

"Eww …"

"Joking." Wilson pulled out the visitor's chair and sat down. "How would you like to go home on Monday?"

House jerked his head around to meet his friend's eyes. "How is that possible? God, yes! But …"

Wilson's face scrunched up with secrets untold. "I seems that Dr. Cuddy has jumped through a few hoops for you."

"Hoops? For me? Is she ill?"

"House! Shut up and listen!"

"I'm listening … trust me!"

"She found a wheelchair for you … portable … motorized. Has a lift that will keep your leg straight. The same company makes a walker you can use that will get you on your feet right away."

"Ali-Medic Walker," House said. "I've read about them … built high, with wheels. All my body weight goes on my elbows. I can begin to walk again without any pressure on my hand. Or on the screwed-up leg."

"Yeah. She ordered them both for you. They'll be here by Monday. They'll deliver them to your apartment. When you don't need them anymore, they'll both go down to rehab. You'll be on parole, so to speak."

House bent his head a moment, but then looked up and met Wilson's gaze with chagrin. "I never thought I'd be eager to get into a wheelchair, but I guess when you find yourself at the bottom of a barrel, even the bunghole looks good."

"House …"

"I'm okay Jimmy. Just tell Cuddy I said … thanks."

"Tell her yourself! That'll kind of make you the man of the hour!"

"Oh, peachy!"

oooooooooooooooooooo

92


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"It's A Dog's Life"

He was mad as hell when he was told he had to go home in an ambulance. It didn't fit with his tough-guy image. He ranted and raved and carried on. He swore and threatened and cajoled and whined, and when that didn't work, he made puppy eyes.

His usual escapades weren't working. Cuddy glared at him in the manner of a parent whose child balks at going to bed on a school night. All his arguments fell on deaf ears. She folded her arms and tapped her foot and held her ground.

"Dr. House, do you want to go home, or don't you? You have about three hours to decide!"

"Hell, yes, but …"

"Everything after 'but' is bullshit! You _will_ ride in the ambulance. On a stretcher! You have no other choice. There will be someone to ride with you and keep you out of trouble. No one wants anything to happen to your leg, and this is the safest way." She smiled sweetly. "You do this _our_ way, or you sit in this hospital bed for another week. Take your choice. I was trying to give you the option of furthering your recovery in your home surroundings." She turned on her heel and click-click-clicked out the door.

He heard her say: "_You_ argue with him!"

"Shit and Damn!" He groused, drowning out a second voice that said something inaudible in reply.

"What are you grumbling about now?" The question came from the edge of the doorway through which Cuddy had just exited. "You're never satisfied with anything, are you?" James Wilson leaned past the door frame on his forearms for a moment, then walked casually into the room and made himself comfortable in the chair beside the bed. He looked up at his friend and bored a hole into the cold blue glare with his own shimmering brown one.

Gregory House met the stern look with a moment of icy challenge, and then glanced away again and lowered his head. Wilson was holding his position with the same implacable stubbornness that Lisa Cuddy had maintained a few minutes before.

House wrinkled his nose and snapped something caustic under his breath.

"What was that?" Wilson demanded.

"I _said_ … 'this is a conspiracy!'"

"Yes. I guess you could say that …"

"Why can't _you_ take me home?"

"Because I never drove an ambulance before!"

"Ha-ha and ha! Not what I meant, and you know it."

"House! I can't take you home. The front seat of my car doesn't slide back far enough to accommodate your bad leg, and you mustn't try to bend your knee yet. You knew that before you asked … so why _did_ you ask?"

"It's a matter of pride."

James understood instantly. House dreaded the thought of arriving at his home under neighborhood scrutiny, flat on his back, helpless and vulnerable. "House, your neighbors couldn't care less. You could ride an elephant right through your front door, and they'd never notice. It'll be a lot easier for you on the stretcher than trying to walk between two big guys with your arms over their shoulders, lugging you up the steps and maybe accidentally bumping your leg or your hand on the way …"

"Yeah … but arriving in a goddamned ambulance and lying on a stretcher covered with a blanket … would tend to draw an audience."

"And you stumbling up the steps screaming in pain would make a difference … how? One or two onlookers standing around outside does not constitute an audience … at least to my way of thinking. It's not like they'll be going in with lights flashing and sirens wailing. Quick stop and a drop, actually! One and they're done!"

"Bet me! Fifty bucks!"

"You're on!"

oooooooooooooooooooo

Norm Lyons, Orthopedist, stopped by his room at 9:00 a.m. There was an orderly with him, pushing a gurney.

House scowled. "What the hell is this!"

"I hear you're going home later today."

"Yeah? So?" He eyed the gurney skeptically. "Your sidekick there gonna push me all the way home in that thing?"

"Nope," Lyons replied with a grin. "I did hear that you'll get to ride in an ambulance though. With a four-motorcycle State Police escort all the way, no less! Bells and whistles … lights and sirens … Invocation … Pledge of Allegiance … Star Spangled banner … brass band … and the full-dress U. S. Marine Corps Glee Club …" Norm Lyons was on a roll and he was enjoying it.

House's glare was venomous. "Screw you!"

Lyons laughed, characteristically pushing his glasses up against his face with an index finger. "Come on, House … let's shift your butt over here. You're going for a ride." He moved the sheet away from House's legs and turned to the orderly. "Be very careful of his leg, Gary."

The orderly nodded.

"Like where?" House was not happy. He grabbed at a corner of the blanket in a feeble effort to pull it back across his body.

"Nobody told you?"

"No!"

"Oh. Sorry. What we have here, then, is a failure to communicate! I'm going to put a sexy fiberglass cast on your hand … something that will let you exercise your fingers a little as they heal … help you get back to a piano keyboard in a couple of months … so you can play 'Nola' again … 'Flight of the Bumble Bee' …"

"You mean something to cause me more pain! And I never _could_ play 'Flight of the Bumble Bee' worth a damn …"

"Well, this will give you added incentive to learn! And only you would possibly look at it as more pain! Now get your miserable ass over onto this gurney and let's go! Don't give Gary a hard time. He will be very careful not to hurt your leg, _if _you cooperate … Okay?"

He rode to Ortho in angry silence. He glared as Lyons injected a local to numb his hand, then took new X-Rays, and gently removed the splint and the padding. The deep cut near his palm was healing nicely. It itched like crazy.

He watched intently as his hand was placed carefully under a strong light and the soft fiberglass was laid on it painlessly and molded by gentle fingers into place. When Lyons finally finished, he found that his wrist was quite immobile, but he could maneuver his thumb without pain, and he could waggle his little finger freely. He could do neither before. The new cast was extremely light, and did not weigh down his entire arm.

He looked at Norman Lyons with grudging respect, flexing his elbow and moving the parts of his hand that he could move.

Norm interpreted the look with an understanding of long acquaintance. "You're welcome," he said, and grinned. "You will need to leave your arm in a sling to keep your hand elevated. But you know that, right?"

"Yeah."

"Ready to go back to your room?"

He paused for a moment, then spoke again. "By the way, your new wheelchair and your Ali-Medic walker were delivered to your place early this morning. Your parents signed for them and they'll be waiting for you when you get there."

"Yeah. Wonderful."

oooooooooooooooooooo

When the ambulance arrived in front of House's place, the sidewalks surrounding the apartment were dotted with lingering groups of the morbidly curious who had seen the big vehicle pull up and stop with a screeching of brakes.

When the driver and his assistant lowered him out of the back, and the stretcher's mechanism touched its wheels to the macadam, he looked around unhappily at the tight sea of faces. His parents were both there, but he had expected that. They were leading the way inside the building, and anxiously holding the doors open for the stretcher's passage.

After a few moments, he began to calculate his winnings from the bet with Wilson. Once in a very great while, he thought smugly, a bad thing turned into a good thing. He could hold this one over Wilson's head for years!

And while he thought about it … where the hell _was_ Wilson, anyway?

The big wheelchair was there, right inside his front door. Looming like an apparition in the shadows behind the couch. Scooter Store … Rascal … Jazzy … Hover-Round! He suddenly felt like he was a hundred years old. His grandfather would probably be about that age. It was really quite amusing, but sobering at the same time.

_Damn!_

He smiled briefly at his Mom as they lifted him gently from the stretcher and into the chair. His leg hurt like hell and he was overdue for meds. The right leg rest came up and locked, and then one of the goose-down pillows from the foot of his bed was beneath the painful limb, cushioning it, for all the good it did.

The navy blue sling with the white strap rode across his left shoulder and cradled his hand at a steep upward angle. For the first time since he'd injured it, his hand did not throb. Small favors! That jerk, Norm Lyons, did indeed know what he was doing when he worked with broken bones and torn ligaments. House had to "hand" it to him. (A little play on words there, he thought.) He caught himself before he giggled like a jabbering idiot.

When the ambulance crew placed his hospital belongings on the couch, took their paraphernalia and left, House leaned back to study the wheelchair's control module set conveniently by his left hand. It was an overly simple arrangement. Move the joy stick to the left or right and the chair moved left or right. Move it forward, the chair went forward; move it back, the thing backed up. Let go, and it stopped. Duh! Nintendo on a grand scale!

Oh goody! He now enjoyed the same mobility factor as his grandfather. Actually, he felt about as feeble as his grandfather, had the old man still been walking the Earth.

It was an amazing phenomenon also, that even though he'd felt fine in the hospital and itching to get out of there and come home, when he'd crossed his own threshold he'd felt immediately weak and washed out and fatigued. And a little light headed.

"I made lunch, Gregg," his mother said. "Are you hungry?" She was looking at him very strangely.

He smiled at her offer, but shook his head weakly. It was almost too much effort to move. "No … I'm just not very hungry, Mom. Sorry. I think I … just want to go in and lie down awhile, if you don't mind. I need to take my meds. Could you get them?" He felt himself sagging, listing to the right, unable to straighten in the damn chair, and the dizziness was claiming him quickly. He allowed his eyes to fall closed.

He could hear his mother moving to the couch, sorting through things in his blue backpack. Then he heard the rattle of the pill bottle. He lifted his head and opened his eyes for a moment. John House had knelt close to his left side, one powerful hand on the wheelchair's sturdy black frame, not quite touching his son.

"'S'okay Dad … I may need your help in a few minutes … if that works for you …" He accepted two pills from his Mom and swallowed them dry before she could offer him water.

"That's what I'm here for, Son," Blackjack told him quietly. "Whatever you need from me …"

He could feel their eyes boring into him with the intensity of their caring. Even his Dad, who still did not know how to care in a fashion that his son could accept from him … and so far removed from gentle Wilson … who did not particularly give a crap what he thought! Wilson just went ahead and did the things that might make life easier for his friend.

He needed to thank Wilson one of these days, for service above and beyond the call of duty. Another U. S. Marine cliché! Christ! But right now he was much too tired to concentrate. Ordinarily he despised cloying moments like this, as his parents both paused to regard him with their loving concern. Pitying looks such as these cut into him deeply.

His thoughts suddenly began to wander astray into territory he never talked about.

People looking at him with pity, offering to do things for him that he was still quite able to do for himself, galled him to the point of souring his stomach. God, how he hated that!

People!

Those morons who needed to wait on him so he would not have to walk on the crippled leg, drove him crazy. He could always pluck the look of guilt from their eyes for wanting to be rid of him quickly. What they reallywanted … most of them … was to put as much distance between him and themselves as possible; meet his needs and scoot him away somewhere out of sight so he would not cause them inconvenience or embarrassment. Did they think he'd just fallen off the damn turnip truck?

_Don't let anybody think you're not looking out for the cripple!_ The litany of the day! _ Get the cripple fixed up and out of the way! _ Was more like the truth! _Everybody knows cripples are so freakin' slow!_

"Politically Correct" never stacked up very well behind "The Bare-Assed Truth!"

_Screw it!_

The black wheelchair rolled down the hallway to the bedroom, accompanied by two older adults who were glaringly quiet. The room was spotless. Cleaner than he'd seen it since the day he'd moved in. He closed his eyes against the sad, ironic laughter welling up. But it was just too much trouble even to smile.

Blythe pulled back the freshly changed sheets on his big bed. Blackjack used the same arrangement he'd employed before to help him into bed.

Gregg leaned against the pile of pillows pushed up at the headboard, and they eased the one from the wheelchair back beneath his leg.

"Please … don't put any covers on top of my leg …"

"Of course not …" Not asking the question foremost in their minds: _WHY? Are you that sore?_

"Are you all right, Gregg?"

"I'm fine, Mom. Thanks Dad …"

"You're welcome, darling. We love you."

"Love you too. Where's Wilson?"

"He's at work, sweetheart. He'll see you tonight."

"M'Kay …" He was asleep.

They pulled the door not-quite closed. Left him sleep.

"Blythe … do you think Gregg has an unnatural attachment to Wilson?"

"No, John. Not unnatural at all. For them …"

ooooooooooooooooooo

He awoke to the flare of pain. Again! The leg felt mildly unstable.

He could hear voices in a dim murmur coming from the living room. The bedroom door was open wider now than it had been earlier. Someone had been in to check on him. He held his breath and listened. Not just his parents! They were talking with someone else, and he smiled, letting the breath whoosh out again, knowing at once who it was. Sounds of intermittent laughter floated back, and he could hear Wilson's quiet baritone rumbling through the air. Unaccountably, he felt a bit better. Not in the leg or the hand … but in the belly … and in the head.

His parents had thoughtfully left his prescription bottle on the night table. He looked at it with chagrin. It was on his right side, just out of reach. Damn! He propped himself on his elbows and inched closer. If he could just get it jammed between his right thumb and the fiberglass cast … stem the negative flow from his leg that made it threaten to do something stupid. He recognized all the signs.

The bottle slipped on the smooth table top, polished to a high sheen for the first time in six months, skidded away out of reach and rolled onto the floor with an annoying rattle.

_Damn!_

Awkwardly, he looked over the edge of the bed and down. _Way_ out of reach! He leaned back on the pillows and sighed. He guessed he'd have to call out to them.

He sensed a quick flurry of movement from that side of the bed; just a flicker of motion that quickly disappeared again. He frowned. What the hell? Almost like the blurred motion of a housefly that darts back and forth within the field of vision; zip! then gone. But this wasn't a bug. He hauled himself around again and looked over the edge for the second time.

Baxter sat there looking up at him with a doggie grin on his face, fluffy tail in full motion. His head was tilted to one side, tongue lolling in what was becoming a very familiar sight. The small dark eyes were fastened on him intently. Waiting … for what? The dog's furry body was positioned no more than a foot away from the dropped pill bottle.

Gregg pointed to the bottle without any expectation at all that the dog would know what the hell he was talking about. "Get me that, will you? My leg hurts!"

Baxter's head tilted in the opposite direction, and seemed to be concentrating on the pointing finger. But the finger was accompanied by other fingers which were all encased in a white thing-a-ma-gig. He looked around himself for a moment, then back to the hand that was encased in the fiberglass cast.

Gregg House sighed. He knew it was too good to be true. This was a _dog_! He hitched himself about and planted his right elbow on the bed. He then lifted his left hand and made a great show of pointing _one_ finger at the Vicodin bottle. "Get it!" He said. "Fetch, okay? Will ya get the damn bottle and bring it over here? My fucking _leg_ hurts! Do you know what that's like? No, of course you don't. You're a dog!"

Baxter scrambled to his feet and looked at the human again.

_Are we playing a game? What do you want me to do? I'll play with you, but you gotta tell me the rules!_

Bax turned himself around, searching for the "toy" that the pointing finger meant for him to find. There was nothing he could see that even faintly resembled what this human's idea of a "toy" might be. His eyes fastened on the pill bottle, but that was not a toy. The pair of white hospital slippers dropped on the carpet did not qualify as a toy either. He paused and stared at the human, confused.

_WHAT?_

House tried again, determined to make Baxter understand him without having to resort to calling for assistance from anyone in another part of the apartment. He pulled himself around on the bed, dragging his injured leg off the pillow and causing the pain to flare again. The weakened muscles tightened, as though waiting for any excuse. He bit down hard on his lower lip, clenched both eyes shut and waited. Presently, it eased. He pointed to the pill bottle again. "Baxter. Fetch! Get it! Bring it here!" He used every doggie cliché he could think of.

Something connected. Baxter was looking down at the bottle, then back up to House's face.

House nodded and beckoned with all the fingers of his left hand. "Atta boy, Bax. Get it! Bring it here, Bax!"

Baxter hesitated. _That thing? That's not a toy! I could scrunch it up and swallow it in one bite! Are you kidding me? _ He did not move. Looked at the bottle; looked at House.

Gregg nodded his head, encouraging. "That's it, boy … bring it here …"

Baxter looked at the Vicodin bottle a final time, then reached down and picked it up in his teeth. _You gotta be kidding!_

House was nodding his head up and down to the point of making the whole bed bounce. His leg was going into spasm, and he was so distracted that he hardly noticed. "Atta boy … good boy … bring it up here … come to Daddy …"

Baxter jumped lightly onto the surface of the bed and dropped the pill bottle within an inch of House's left hand. House's fingers closed around it … and his leg went into spasm.

The pain overwhelmed him. He cried out.

Alarmed and afraid he'd done something unforgivable, Baxter jumped off the bed and scurried out of the room.

Footsteps pounded back the hallway. The dog yipped. He'd been barrel rolled by somebody.

Wilson got to the bedroom doorway first, and ran inside. House was curled over his shaking, vibrating leg. Both arms were cradling his thigh, trying to hold it still and calm the violence. The fringes of his hair were already damp with perspiration and he was panting like a man who has just come off a five-mile run. He looked at Wilson with eyes clouded and bleak from pain. Breathless. "Christ on a crutch …"

Wilson threw himself across the bed and clasped House's leg as gently as possible at the knee. "Blythe! John … I need the syringe from my bag in the living room. It's marked. Bring it to me … hurry!" He held his body over the length of House's leg, steadying the man with his right hand, pressing onto the knee with his left. "Easy, House! … I've got you. Try to relax … I know how much it hurts. Grab my shoulder and squeeze!"

Wilson felt House's left hand go down on his right shoulder with the strength of two men. He groaned, but did not flinch.

John House came around the corner with the Demerol syringe. Wilson pulled the cap with his teeth and drove the needle home. House wilted back into the pillows in the same manner that a spent hot-air balloon floats slowly to the ground.

Wilson scrambled to the head of the bed and took his friend's face tenderly between his palms. "Hey! House! You're okay now. That was a bad one, wasn't it?" He didn't expect an answer; didn't get one. He sat still, hardly moving, while House caught his breath again in short gasps of sudden relief, and the angry muscles of his hurt leg relaxed by degrees.

Wilson sat down again, letting his fingers trail affectionately back across House's battered face. His right shoulder felt as though it had been hit with a baseball bat. His friend was strong. His opposite hand brushed against something hard and cylindrical. The brown prescription bottle of Vicodin lay toppled in the middle of the sheet. It had a trace of doggie slobber on it. Wilson replaced it on the night stand. The corner of his mouth tweaked up a little. Their four-legged "Florence Nightingale" had been visiting. House must have been teaching him some new tricks.

Wilson swung his legs around and perched on the edge of the bed. He turned to look at House, flopped there like a wet dishrag, enjoying the absence of pain. The leg was going to be sore after this one. "You know I have to examine that, right?" He asked.

Panting heavily, House played his gaze between Wilson and his parents, still hovering in the doorway. "Yeah," he gasped. "I know. Would you two mind hanging out in the other room awhile? I still have a small amount of dignity left to preserve, you know."

His mother smiled and prepared to depart as he'd asked, but Blackjack simply grunted and stood his ground, staring balefully at his son. His face was inscrutable. "Hell! I've seen your leg, son. It's just a damn _leg_!" He winked, grinned, and then turned around and left.

House's eyes were like saucers. "Can you believe that old fart!"

Wilson chuckled with delight, unsurprised at recent developments, and loving Gregory House with his eyes. House's leg seemed no worse for wear.

"Wilson, when you're finished manhandling me, kindly send my dog back in here, willya? Oh … and by the way … you owe me fifty bucks!"

ooooooooooooooooooooouse's face between his hands.House's face between his hands. "

102


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

"The Longest and Windingest Road"

"_Wil-sonn!"_

"What now?" James dried his hands on the tea towel slung across his shoulder and hurried from the middle of the kitchen to the living room doorway. Peering around the corner, he froze in place as House looked over at him in a moment of jaw-clenched triumph. His compromised right leg was making jerky movements in the air. Something like walking, but not.

"Look!"

Across the room on the couch, Baxter lay sprawled with his front paws hanging over the edge, and his muzzle placed strategically between them, watching closely. When his loud-mouthed friend was on the walker, the big dog kept his distance with a respectful compassion that amazed the humans. Only in the company of John House did the dog ever move more than a few steps away from Gregg's side. He and the older man had become instant friends, and even Blythe paused sometimes to scratch behind his ears affectionately.

James Wilson stared at the skinny leg in silent empathy, not trusting his voice to make a comment. Not yet.

He had watched recent developments between members of the House family in silent and astonished wonder. He hoped against all hope that nothing happened to break the fragile bubble between House and his Dad before a firmer rapport could be established. Even James' respectful, lifelong comradeship with his own father took a back seat to what was happening with the two men of "House." It was almost like the slow, timid blossoming of a fragile flower. No! Strike that! More like a cactus that suddenly burst into bloom in the desert after a raging storm! He'd smiled to himself on more than one occasion lately, and actually pinched himself to be sure he was awake.

When House was in the wheelchair or in bed or on the couch, Baxter would venture over to him and lay his head gently in Gregg's lap. With a silent wisdom endowed only upon the animal kingdom by Mother Nature, Bax knew that that was the best time to get a Meaty Bone and an ear scratch at the same time. His devotion and loyalty to Gregg House had everyone who met them shaking their heads in amazement. This fact alone gave Gregg yet another occasion for smugness. And he seemed willing to share it, tentatively, with his father.

"I'm looking."

Even as Wilson continued to watch, Gregg was leaning harder on the walker. Again! Both forearms anchored on the padded arm rests locked at elbow height, the broken hand slightly elevated, he was toughing it out for the third time that day. Wilson watched him closely, gauging the amount of time Gregg had left before he asked for assistance in getting back to the wheelchair. Or the couch. It wasn't going to be long, or he would never have called out in the first place.

House insisted on using the walker at least a half dozen times a day, but he could only tolerate the strain on his weakened body for very short periods each time.

He was wearing his other set of sweats … the dark blue ones …the second of two sets his mother had bought two weeks before and removed the right sleeve and right pant leg. He stood planted by the bookcase, both elbows firmly centered on the wide cushioned armrests for balance, his left foot in one of his Nike Shox.

House's right leg and foot were bare. It could not tolerate his weight, but lately he had begun to exercise the knee by assuming a walking motion. He had discovered that a shoe on the left foot afforded him just enough clearance to hitch up his right hip and clear the floor with his right foot.

The bandages were gone now from the recent thigh injury, and its scar stood out bright and pink and still a little puckered the entire length from knee to hip. The infarction scar, a little to the right of the laceration, remained hollow and angry, and made his leg look emaciated, which, actually, it was since the swelling had receded. He had a long way to go before his return to mobility even started to resemble what it had been before the accident with the Corvette.

James Wilson watched him closely as he began to move again, one difficult step at a time, and waited for the inevitable request to help him sit back down to gather his reserves to try it again.

At least House was enthusiastic in his own recovery this time. His anger and bitterness had eased a little, along with the old animosity between himself and his father. John and Blythe had moved out of Gregg's apartment and into the Peacock Inn downtown. They had extended their stay an extra three weeks, and were enjoying the sights and sounds of Princeton and its environs. New Jersey in the early Fall had the added advantage of less humidity, and autumn leaves just beginning to turn color.

The huge Dodge pickup transported the motorized wheelchair with ease, and its roomy back seat accommodated House and his unyielding leg almost comfortably. Twice now, they'd all gone on short excursions to local eateries. Wilson was gratified to take note that his austere, uncompromising friend had actually allowed himself to enjoy a laugh from time to time. It had been music to his ears.

"Are you ready to get back on the couch?" Wilson asked conversationally.

Gregg nodded. "Yeah."

Wilson dropped the tea towel onto the piano bench and walked over to guide his tired friend to the old leather couch. Baxter jumped down to the floor and stood watching with rapt interest. James helped turn the walker around with care, and then eased Gregg down, lifting his leg carefully onto the pillow that rested permanently atop the coffee table. "Okay?"

Force of habit made him squat at his friend's side and place the backs of his fingers on the crippled leg; forever checking for any difference in temperature or any sign of infection. The leg was cool to the touch and showed no new redness around the most recent scar. He patted House's bare knee gently and stood up.

"Yeah," House said. "I'm fine." He snapped his fingers for the dog, and Baxter was at his side in an instant.

"Lunch is about ready," Wilson said. "I'll bring it in here."

"Okay."

Wilson started to walk away, but felt his hand being captured by House's own. He halted and turned, puzzled; eyebrows on the rise.

"Hey …" Gregg's voice was soft and a little hesitant.

"What?"

"I've been meaning to tell you …"

Wilson waited. _What now?_

"Thank you." His friend's voice was so low it was barely audible. "And thanks for seeing me through this … and taking care of me when I couldn't take care of myself. I just … well … thanks." House averted his eyes and looked down at his lap.

Wilson's heart skipped a beat. What kind of answer could he possibly give that wouldn't sound patronizing? He took a deep breath.

"You'd do the same for me …"

"Would I?" Anguished. Uncertain.

Wilson nodded, sandwiching the hesitant hand between both of his own. "Yeah, House, you really would … beyond the shadow of a doubt." They lingered there for a few moments and then Wilson dropped House's hand regretfully. "If you don't turn me loose, you won't get any lunch!" He picked up the tea towel from the piano bench and walked slowly into the kitchen.

House looked after him and smiled. Barely. "Can't have that, can we, Bax?"

The moment was over.

Ooooooooooo

Afternoon:

Baxter dug his cold, wet snoot beneath House's left elbow and nudged upward.

_Hey! I'm here! Pay attention to me! Wanna play?_

House had turned on QVC with the sound muted. They were hawking sound systems and MP3 players and the latest iPod technology. He wasn't much interested in anything they had to offer. He already owned most of that stuff … without paying any of their damned outrageous shipping charges.

What he was doing, in reality, was distracting himself from another bout of creeping pain, and attempting to divert his mind from the fact that he had to pee like a race horse! He did not want to disturb Wilson. Or the leg.

"You bored, Bax? Don't blame you. I'm sick of counting nail holes in the woodwork and reciting nursery rhymes in Japanese! Wanna go out and toss the ball around, boy? Huh?"

_Yeah-yeah-yeah … let's go!_

"Wish I could. Christ … what I wouldn't give …"

In the kitchen, Wilson finished lunch cleanup and listened to the one-sided conversation with deep regret. He unwrapped a large beef roast and placed it in the big roaster with crushed garlic and some sliced onions. He turned the oven to 350, ran an inch of water in the roaster and then slid it onto the bottom rack. Three hours, tops, and he could add carrots, and then potatoes.

Five o'clock: Voila!

John and Blythe were coming over for supper tonight, and for House's sake he wanted everything to be just right. Gregg's parents were leaving for home early tomorrow morning, and probably wouldn't get back again until late fall or early winter. He double checked the room and, satisfied, removed the tea towel from his shoulder and walked to the utility room with it; tossed it into the laundry hamper.

House was still carrying on a silly one-sided conversation with Baxter when James returned to the living room. The dog sat in front of the couch like an attentive kindergartener listening to his teacher read a story. Depending on how one looked at the two of them, the imaginary "conversation" actually looked a little like an exchange of words between them. Wilson wrinkled his nose and crossed over to sit down beside House.

"When's the last time you took your meds?"

"An hour ago, Mother," Gregg said sarcastically. "But I do have to go pee, and it's gonna be a bitch because my leg hurts like hell."

"Overdid it with the walker today, didn't you?"

"Yeah, probably. But 'overdid it' sounds like a contradiction in terms. It's a little difficult to 'overdo' something with a leg whose foot doesn't even touch the floor!"

"Day at a time, House. Day at a time."

"Don't remind me!"

ooooooooooooooooooo

The dinner did, indeed, go as planned. James and Blythe ate the carefully prepared meal seated on stools at the kitchen counter. House, in the wheelchair, sat with his Dad in animated conversation, pulled up to the little table by the window nearby.

They kept the conversation light and funny and sarcastic and steered purposely away from the heavier aspects of injury and pain and difficult months of recovery. That was the one thing that was uppermost in all their minds.

After the excellent meal, James said his goodbyes and gave his handshakes and hugs, and then discreetly disappeared into the laundry room to sort the wash and start up the washing machine. Families were families, after all.

In the living room, Gregg sat in the wheelchair and wished he could rise to his feet to give his mother a proper hug and kiss from the height of a man, rather than that of a compromised cripple. Blythe didn't mind. Sitting or standing, she would have cried at their parting either way.

John "Blackjack" House fumbled with his truck keys, wondering if something he might inadvertently say in parting with his son, might compromise all the ground they had gained during the past almost-a-month. He stood with a dry throat and shaky hands, unable to put thoughts to words.

Gregg did it for him.

"I love you, Dad. I didn't know that before. I know it now. Mom, you already know how much you mean to me …"

At his side, Baxter voiced agreement.

John House went to his knees, holding back tears, and put his arms gently around his son's shoulders.

"I am very proud," he said shakily, "_very_ proud … to be your father!"

oooooooooooo

By Hallowe'en, Gregory House was able to walk with crutches. He wore a sock on his foot, and was able to slide the foot gingerly across the floor. Wilson brought him sweat suits with the sleeves and pantlegs intact.

The Ali-Medic walker and the big motorized wheelchair had been dispatched to the rehab center to be used by someone who was too "crippled" to walk as well as House could.

His hand had healed well and completely. He could play "Nola" again, and even "The Minute Waltz", but he still had not mastered the intricate fingerings of "Flight of the Bumble Bee" in concert tempo, and he was reminded of Norm Lyons' sarcastic teasing every time he tried it.

Gregg returned to work right after Thanksgiving, and did not bitch about clinic duty until the week before Christmas. He had graduated to wearing both shoes! Cuddy and the kids were so happy to see him back that they did not complain about the return of his sarcastic tongue for at least the first week. After that, things were back to normal except for the crutches, but Gregg was continually working on it.

Wilson had moved out of House's apartment again, and back to his own, although he still drove Gregg to work every day.

Baxter, regrettably, had to return to Lisa Cuddy's fenced-in yard and a new dog bed on her enclosed back porch. Baxter was not very happy with that arrangement, and neither was Gregg, but until a solution could be found, neither of them had any other choice.

Baxter spent weekends with House and, usually, Wilson. Since House's knee was now in bendable condition, and he was able to bear a little weight, they spent many of their Sundays on country excursions and quiet rural getaways on these cold, sharp winter days; contingent, of course, within Gregg's range of comfort. Sometimes the pain came back to rock him on his heels, and they would have to return home. Other times he was good to go for a leisurely afternoon of careful prowling around with his best friend and his dog in comfortable outdoor pursuits.

House and Wilson were spending more and more time together, simply because they chose to.

Baxter approved.

oooooooooooo

John and Blythe arrived at the Peacock Inn early Christmas week. It was a pleasant surprise. They had just flown in from a month of visiting with very old friends in Iwakuni, Japan.

Their son had a surprise of his own. When they arrived at his apartment, Gregg met them at the door, accompanied by an enthusiastic Baxter and a smiling Wilson. He was actually walking; very gingerly, very carefully … but he was walking with his cane!

There was not a dry eye in the place.

House and Wilson were both on extended Christmas vacations, and spent most of their time catching up with Blythe and John, hearing of their adventures in Japan. Even Gregg was extremely open about his gradual transition back to "almost rehabilitated" territory.

They all had Christmas dinner at the Peacock's four-star dining room, one of the few places in town that was open on Christmas Day. Grinning with silly delight, Wilson became a Gentile for the day. No one had to cook; no one had to clean up. They and a select group of other patrons enjoyed cocktails and Christmas lights, and even a melodic string quartet after dinner. The day ended up in a comfortable haze of relaxed holiday enjoyment.

At the end of the evening, as John and Blythe got ready to return to their room and James prepared to take Gregg home, John took his son off to the side.

"What are you going to do with Bax?" John wanted to know.

"I'm still not sure, Dad. I keep putting off finding him a home. I spend too much time at work to justify keeping him, even though I pretty much owe him my life. It really isn't fair to him because a big dog like Baxter needs lots of attention … and a place to run." Suddenly Gregg frowned. "You have an idea?"

"Yeah," John said. "Maybe. What would you think about him spending some time in Ithaca, New York?"

Gregg's frown deepened. "_Your place?_'

"Why not?"

"But … we never had a dog from the time I was a little kid!"

"That was a pretty long time ago."

"Don't remind me!"

John laughed. "Well, whaddaya think? I like the mutt, the mutt seems to like me, okay? He'll miss you … but it's not like he's gone forever … and Ithaca's not _that_ far away! It's a pleasant drive. You and Jimmy can drive on up there …"

"'Jimmy'?"

"Yeah … you and Jimmy! What's the matter? Jesus Christ, Gregg … we're not blind!"

Blythe, listening from a few feet away, walked up and placed a loving hand on her son's cheek. "We'll take good care of Baxter, darling. And you boys can come up to visit him … and us … anytime you want. You'll both be most welcome." She smiled sweetly, knowingly, in her own inimitable way.

John House grinned and waggled his eyebrows.

For one time in his life, Gregory House was speechless.

Across the large dining room, James Wilson was walking back from paying their dinner bill. Gregg's eyes drilled into his with an icy look that froze him to the spot.

"_What_!"

Blythe and John were smiling at him with sweet innocence … or as "sweet" as Blackjack House ever allowed himself to become!

Wilson's face turned scarlet. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped open. Gregg wasn't the only one caught without words.

"Unhhh …"

ooooooooooooo

They left two mornings later: Wednesday. They stopped by Gregg's place to pick up Baxter and all his paraphernalia and his food dishes and his toys.

Bax licked Gregg's face first, and then he walked over and licked James's face.

Just before he jumped into the back seat of the big Dodge, his once-and-forever domain, as of that minute, he stopped in his tracks and looked back over his shoulder. Gregg saw the doggie grin on Baxter's face and knew at once what he was saying:

_Been a good ride, Dude! Thanks for all the Meaty Bones! You're pretty cool for a crippled guy. Your sidekick's okay too. But I'm off to see The Wizard. Gotta check out the next parking meter … the next fireplug. I'll be seein' ya around!_

(He just couldn't help being a dog! It came with the territory.)

Smiling, House and Wilson watched the big silver pickup truck pull out and gain speed toward the highway, red tail lights flashing in the winter twilight.

They watched it out of sight, hands touching lightly at their sides.

"Smart folks, you got there …" Wilson mused.

Gregory House had to agree.

- The End -

ouse and

ouse House Houseuse House

108


End file.
